@John Jay Newsletter Archive 2010

@John Jay News and Events of Interest to the College Community

October 27, 2010

Worth NotingOctober 31 9:30 AMCUNY Athletic Conference Cross-Country ChampionshipsVan Cortlandt Park, The Bronx

November 4 8:00 AMNYC-DR Roundtable BreakfastThe Colors of War, with Terry RosenbergA traveling slide-show exhibition of 100 digital paintings.

Presented by the CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium at John Jay College and the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York

Room 610 Haaren Hall

November 9 6:30 PMPatrick V. Murphy LectureGarry McCarthyPolice Director, Newark, NJ


For just the second time in 28 years, a gubernatorial candidate named Cuomo visited John Jay College for a major campaign appearance.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic nominee for Governor, chose the College as the site of a press conference on October 5 at which he unveiled an aggressive ethics agenda, “Clean Up Albany: Make It Work.” Cuomo also received the endorsement of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who hailed him as a “clear choice for reform.”

“It is time to put a stop to Albany’s dysfunction and corruption,” Cuomo told the crowd gathered in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater. “If we want to bring integrity back to the halls of our Capitol, then we must take action. My Clean Up Albany agenda is the aggressive approach we need to take. By cracking down on public corruption, ending pay-to-play and holding those who abuse

their office accountable, we will restore New Yorkers’ confidence in their government.”

Among other provisions, Cuomo’s ethics plan

John Jay’s First Year Experience program, the PRISM program for undergraduate science majors and the overall forensic science curriculum will be the beneficiaries of a number of large, multiyear federal grants recently awarded to the College.

In addition, the College’s Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center will share with Temple University a $1-million grant from the U.S. Justice Department to design and implement an evaluation of the Community-Based Violence Prevention Demonstration Program (CBVP).

A competitive Title V grant of more than $637,000 annually for the next five years will help enhance the First Year Experience and forensic science curriculum. “Funding for the FYE will be used to support the development of a comprehensive seminar program for incoming freshmen,” said the program’s Director, Kate Szur. In addition, Szur said, a curriculum supplement would be created that will include syllabi, teaching notes and other materials useful to new faculty members considering teaching such a seminar.

“We would also like to develop a peer-mentoring program for freshmen, where First Year seminar courses would be supported by upper-class peers who would help with transition

and adjustment issues,” Szur said.The same grant will support the curricular

development of lower-level classes for forensic science majors, as well as a non-major introductory course on science and society. Professor Anthony Carpi, interim Chair of the Department of Sciences, said the aim is to make these classes more “research-oriented and inquiry driven.” The grant will also provide stipends for upper-level forensic science students engaged in undergraduate research.

A separate grant of $600,000 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program will support the operation and expansion of John Jay’s Program for Research Initiatives for Science Majors (PRISM), which was created in 2006. The grant will fund student research stipends, travel to conferences, an annual newsletter and a Web site.

“I think what this grant will do is expand the success we’ve been having in moving students from John Jay on to graduate PhD and MD programs,” said Carpi, “It’s just fantastic that we will be able to keep up that momentum.”

The Justice Department grant, awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention, will allow researchers at John Jay and Temple to assess the $8.6-million CBVP program, which replicates innovative best practices in violent-crime control, such as the Boston Gun Project and Chicago CeaseFire, said Jeffrey A. Butts, executive director of the Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center.

“These approaches have evolved into promising strategies for violence reduction with theoretical underpinnings,” said Butts, “yet the empirical research assessing the impact of the initiatives is still developing. Attempts to replicate the models have not always been successful.”

Four localities or local entities will participate in the research: the city of Oakland, CA; the city and county of Denver Safe City Office; the Columbia Heights Shaw Family Support Collaborative in Washington, DC, and the City of New York/Center for Court Innovation. “Each of the cities will propose a mix of efforts,” Butts noted. “What we’re evaluating is not individual efforts within the cities, but each city’s total campaign. The Justice Dpeartment hopes to do that in a way that allows other cities to learn about the most effective methods.”

The research is expected to be published in 2014.

Millions of Reasons to Cheer as College Wins Funding for Diverse Programs

New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman on October 13 announced the creation of the state’s first Permanent Sentencing Commission, which will be housed, fittingly, at John Jay College.

The commission will conduct a comprehensive and ongoing evaluation of sentencing laws and practices and recommend reforms to improve the quality and effectiveness of statewide sentencing policy. It will be co-chaired by New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and Judge Barry Kamins, the administrative judge of the State Supreme Court (Criminal Term) in Kings County.

Martin F. Horn, a Distinguished Lecturer at John Jay, will serve as the commission’s executive director, with the expertise and resources of the

During a recent campaign stop at John Jay, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

makes a point about his proposal for sweeping ethics reform in Albany, as former New York City

Mayor Ed Koch listens. Koch endorsed Cuomo’s bid to become New York’s next Governor.

would create a voluntary system of public campaign financing, strengthen the penalties against lawmakers who defraud their constituents or the government, and strip the pension benefits from public officials who are convicted of a felony related to their official duties.

Koch, still feisty at age 85, hailed Cuomo as a public official who has “spent his career standing up for New Yorkers, taking on the toughest challenges and making progress on issues that others have ignored.” The candidate’s ethics agenda, Koch said, is designed to achieve independence, accountability and transparency and “transform our government into one that New Yorkers deserve.”

In 1982, Cuomo’s father, Mario, who was then seeking his first term as Governor, made a campaign stop at John Jay to release a criminal

justice policy statement that included his staunch opposition to the death penalty.

College at his disposal. Horn previously served as commissioner of New York City’s Department of Correction and Department of Probation, and as executive director of the New York State Division of Parole.

John Jay President Jeremy Travis said the selection of the College as the commission’s home, and Horn as its executive director, is an honor that “recognizes the expertise of John Jay’s faculty and reaffirms the College’s leadership in criminal justice matters.”

Creation of a permanent sentencing commission was recommended by the short-term Commission on Sentencing Reform in its 2009 report to Governor David Paterson titled “The Future of Sentencing in New York State: Recommendations for Reform.”

The new commission will follow through on actions proposed in that report as well as examine others, including truth-in-sentencing, post-incarceration programs for offenders, alternatives to incarceration, victim participation in sentencing, and the collection and analysis of reliable data for use in crafting sentencing policies.

“There is no one-size-fits-all model for criminal sentencing,” said Vance. “Four decades after most of our sentencing laws were passed, it’s time for New York to focus on being smart on crime. This will mean longer sentences in some instances, while in others identifying appropriate cases for alternatives to incarceration. In all cases, our goal is to prevent crime, keep our streets safe, and ensure fairness and justice in our

Cuomo & Koch, Together AgainIn Campaign Stop at John Jay, Candidate Wins Ex-Mayor’sBacking for Governor & Unveils Sweeping Ethics Reform Plan

New NYS Sentencing Commission to Call John Jay Homecourts.”

The commission’s vice-chairs are Derek P. Champagne, the Franklin County District Attorney and current president of the New York State District Attorneys Association, and Judge Patricia Marks, Monroe County Court Judge and Supervising Judge for the Criminal Courts in the Seventh Judicial District. The commissioners of the state Department of Correctional Services and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services and the chair of the state Board of Parole will serve as members ex-officio.

The commission will also include representatives from throughout the state’s criminal justice community, including criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, legislators, policymakers, academics, victim advocates and other stakeholders.

“I am honored to serve in this important effort,” said Horn. “New York’s sentencing scheme is a patchwork of provisions added over time with serious consequences for defendants, victims, and the community. Chief Judge Lippman’s creation of a permanent commission is an opportunity to preserve New York’s success in making our communities safer and improve the quality of justice at the same time.”

November Is CUNY Month!

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educating for justice

PRESENTING…GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Political Science) recently addressed a symposium on human trafficking held at the Nova Southeastern University School of Law in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Andreopoulos’s presentation was on “The Landscape of Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective.”

M. VICTORIA PEREZ-RIOS (Political Science) presented “Sierra Leone: A Hybrid Model to Follow,” at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference in Washington, DC, on September 2–5. In early July, she presented “‘The Alliance of Civilizations’ as an Effective Counter-terrorism Tool” at the 10th Comparative Interdisciplinary Section of the International Studies Association’s Millennium Conference, in Venice, Italy. She was also the discussant on the panel on Conflict, Migration and Minorities at the conference.

KEITH MARKUS (Psychology) presented a colloquium titled "Measurement, Causation, and Test Validity: Theoretical Puzzles and Practical Problems" to the Doctoral Program in Social Personality Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center on September 15 and the Doctoral

Program in Psychometrics at Fordham University on September 22. JOSE LUIS MORÍN (Latin American and Latina/o Studies) presented a paper on “The Frontiers of Latino Studies: The Importance of Latino Studies in the 21st Century” at Montana State University as part of the events celebrating the inauguration of MSU’s 12th president on September 9 and 10.

DIANA FRIEDLAND (Sciences) participated in the 2010 plant-biology conference of the American Society of Plant Biologists and Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists in Montreal, Canada, in August. Her presentation — “Binding Pokeweed Antiviral Protein to Tobacco Etch mRNA Constructs: Structural Recognition and Affinity” — included research performed by two of her John Jay students, Alexandra Toney and Jeannine DeGrazia.

BETWEEN THE COVERSKEITH MARKUS (Psychology) published two entries in the Encyclopedia of Research Design (Sage Publications, 2010) with John Jay students as coauthors. Markus and Kellie Smith published an entry titled “Content Validity.” Along with Jia-ying Lin, he published the entry “Construct

Validity.” In addition, Markus’s article “Structural Equations and Causal Explanations: Some Challenges for Causal SEM” appears in the recent issue of Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. In it, he discusses open questions about the nature of causal explanation as they relate to causal modeling in the behavioral sciences.

JACOBY CARTER (Philosophy) had his anthology Philosophic Values and World Citizenship: Locke to Obama and Beyond published in September by Lexington Books, a subsidiary of Rowman and Littlefield. In addition, his article “Just/New War Theory: Non-State Actors in Asymmetric Conflicts” has been published in the journal Philosophy in the Contemporary World.

PEER REVIEWJANE KATZ (Health and Physical Education) competed in the World Masters Swim Champion-ships in Sweden this summer, medaling in the 200-meter backstroke and 800-meter freestyle. At the U.S. Master’s Summer Nationals, held in San Juan, PR, in August, she won the 1500-meter freestyle as well as sweeping the 50-, 100- and 200-meter backstroke events.

The accomplishments of pioneering educator Dr. Maria Montessori were the focus of a lecture by scholar Leonisa Ardizzone as part of John Jay’s Italian Heritage and Culture Month on October 7.

President of the Salvadori Center in New York, Ardizzone has been a public-school teacher working with high-risk students in Seattle, New York City and Ithaca, NY. Having taught at Fordham and Adelphi universities, she holds a doctorate in International Educational Development. Her work in peace education, said President Jeremy Travis during his opening remarks, gives Ardizzone “a home at John Jay.”

Ardizzone noted that Montessori, who was born in Chiaravalle, Italy, in 1870, attended an all-boys school at the age of 13 because she wanted to learn how to be an engineer. From there, she went on to medical school. In 1894, Montessori became the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree. It was through her medical work that she became interested in working with children, said Ardizzone, and treating special-education children was what led her to create the teaching philosophy that underlies the Montessori Method.

“The first thing she did was come up with this idea, after working with 16 children — essentially, throw-away children in the streets of Rome —that they all could learn, they all had the same abilities, and that helped her come to the place that children are in fact agents of their own learning,” said Ardizzone.

In Montessori education, children choose what they want to study, she explained. They select an activity, they complete it, work on it, and then “my favorite thing,” quipped Ardizzone, “they clean up after themselves.”

Children educated at Montessori schools, she continued, are able to follow their own curiosity, explore a variety of materials and often work alone, learning self-sufficiency.

The tribute to Montessori was co-sponsored by John Jay Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Robert Pignatello and CUNY’s John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.

Can a black ex-convict with a violent past reinvent and reintegrate himself in a society that neither prepared him for his return nor is itself prepared for it? That question was examined through a variety of lenses at an October 14 panel discussion of the new book Zebratown by Professor Greg Donaldson.

The book, subtitled The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small-Town America, explores the ups and downs in the life of Kevin Davis — “Killer Kev” — who spent seven years in the New York State prison system on a gun-possession conviction, after having beaten a homicide charge in the same incident.

Co-sponsored by the Center on Race, Crime and Justice and the Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the panel brought together the author along with Professor Delores Jones-Brown and Stephen Handelman, directors, respectively, of the two centers; Professor David Brotherton, Chair of the Department of Sociology, and Professor Amy Green, Chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Donaldson, a member of the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts, described his subject as a fearsome-looking, heavily muscled “über-thug” with a frightening résumé and a carefully codified warrior ethic. Despite this, Davis is articulate and burning with a desire to make it in the post-incarceration world.

“This is not a feel-good book,” Donaldson said of Zebratown, “but while the book may be depressing, it is authentic.” Donaldson followed Davis for eight years to write the book and said that upon reflection: “This has not been a comfortable experience; I’m afraid people will see Kevin Davis and decide he’s not worth it.”

Brotherton, Handelman and Green took turns analyzing Zebratown and its subject matter from different perspectives that reflected their areas of scholarly expertise. Brotherton spoke of the book’s criminological elements, Handelman explored it as a piece of human-interest journalism and Green discussed its pedagogical and theatrical relevance.

Handelman noted that the loftiest role the media can play is to “help you rethink what you thought to be true and real.” Donaldson’s book, he said, serves as “a template for how to write about criminal justice issues from now on.”

Before her talk on the educational pioneer Dr. Maria Montessori, Leonisa Ardizzone, president of the Salvadori Center, was

joined by (from left) President Jeremy Travis, Dean Anthony J. Tamburri of the John D. Calandra Institute at Queens College,

and Senior Vice President Robert Pignatello.

CAMPUS SCENES Tackling Tough Questions in Black & White

A Great Day for Italian-American PrideLecture Looks at Contributions of Educational Pioneer Montessori

TutorDynasty

The first week in October is celebrated as National Tutor Appreciation Week, and John Jay paused to

recognize the roughly 100 tutors who work tirelessly to help John Jay students master their college-

level studies. Tutors from a number of specialized “learning labs,” including the Math & Science Resource

Center, the Center for English Language Support, the Communication Arts Lab, the Foreign Language Lab,

the Writing Center and the SEEK Tutoring Center, received kudos from top college officials, including

certificates of appreciation presented by Dean of Undergraduate Studies Anne Lopes. The event, said

MSRC Director Michele Doney, “is a small way of saying ‘thank you’ for the enormous contributions of

our tutors,” many of whom are versatile enough to be working in more than one resource center.

(Photo by Navraj Sandhu)

Scholars the world over know that John Jay College offers unrivaled opportunity for study and research, and on October 4 President Jeremy Travis

hosted a welcome reception for the latest cohort of international visitors to the campus. On hand

were (from left): Ciara McCormack (McCabe Fellow), President Travis,, Annette Connolly (McCabe Fellow),

Sir Ian Blair (Office for the Advancement of Research), Andrew Briers (Bramshill Exchange Scholar), Annelies

Vredeveldt (Department of Psychology) and Steven Ritchie (Fulbright Scholar). Other visiting scholars at

the College this year include those conducting research in economics, psychology, law and police science, and

in the Lloyd Sealy Library.

VisitorsWelcome

Above: Sonia Chowdhury (l.), one of John Jay’s Peer

Ambassadors, looks on as a student gets ready to post a

suggested name for the new campus outdoor space on the

Idea Wall. Right: A sample of the commemorative pavers

that will line the new Jay Walk uniting John Jay’s old and

new campus buildings.


October 6, 2010

Worth NotingOctober 7 2:00 PMItalian Culture andHeritage Month LecturePrima del suo tempo: Dr. Maria Montessori, Ahead of Her TimeLeonisa ArdizzoneThe Salvadori Center

Gerald W. Lynch Theater Lobby

October 15 9:00 AMPrisoner Reentry Institute Occasional Series onReentry ResearchDo Reentry Courts Reduce Recidivism? Results from the Harlem ParoleReentry CourtZachary HamiltonWashington State University


October 15 9:00 AMHomeland Securityand New YorkPresented by the Center on Terrorism and the Christian Regenhard Centerfor Emergency Response StudiesJohn R. Gibb, Acting CommissionerNew York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services


October 20 7:00 PMJohn Jay’s Got TalentTalent showcase for music, danceand spoken word. Who will be the next John Jay Performer of the Year?

Gerald W. Lynch Theater

October 26 4:00 PMBook & Author SeriesTalking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of TerroristsScott AtranPresidential Scholar and Senior Fellow, Center on Terrorism, John Jay College


October 31 9:30 AMCUNY Cross-Country ChampionshipsVan Cortlandt Park, The Bronx

The people have spoken, and the outdoor space that will unite the old and new elements of John Jay’s expanded campus will henceforth be known as…

The Jay Walk.College officials conducted a “Name the New

Outdoor Space” canvass of the student body in mid-September, in which more than 600 votes were cast. Students were asked to choose among The Commons, The Quad, The Green, or submit a suggestion of their own. The balloting generated 97 write-in ideas, with The Jay Walk being a clear favorite.

“We sought the advice of the community, got it and made a decision,” said President Jeremy Travis. “The Jay Walk has sizzle, it comes from the students, and it is unique. When we say ‘Welcome to The Jay Walk,’ we will get a smile from a new visitor.”

The 60,000-square-foot Jay Walk will be made up of custom engraved bricks and personalized trees and benches, providing supporters of John Jay with a unique way to honor and remember alumni, graduating students, faculty and friends. Proceeds from the sale of these commemorative

Walking ‘The Walk’Student Poll Names New Campus Outdoor Space

gifts go directly to support scholarships for John Jay students.

For more information on purchasing a commemorative item through the Jay Walk Campaign, call 212.237.8688, or go online to http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/jaywalk.

Scholarship Fundsto Get a Boost from Paver Campaign

A Beautiful Day for a WalkMembers of the John Jay women’s softball team wore a different uniform on September 12 as they became part of the John

Jay Jaywalkers contingent in the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to fight breast cancer. The college delegation was

coordinated once again by team captain Irene O’Donnell (center, in white cap and sunglasses), the Director of Campus Office

Services, and included President Travis and dozens of other faculty, staff and students.

Are you ready and willing to plan, promote and staff events; help build community ties on- and off-campus; work alongside a variety of community partners, and plan and conduct research? If so, you should consider becoming a Community Service Representative.

To pursue these positions offered by the College’s Office of Community and Service Outreach, students need to be full-time with a grade point average of at least 3.2, and hold U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status. Three hundred hours of participation in this elite group of student activists comes with job training, a $1,000 educational stipend, and memories and experiences to last a lifetime. The positions are funded through the AmeriCorps program.

“I think we’re tapping into what motivates

students to come to John Jay in the first place,” said Declan Walsh, the office’s director. “They come to John Jay to be in public service, and this resonates with them as something that will give them a chance right now to do what their degrees will equip them to do down the road.”

The community-outreach office, which completed its first full year of operation in July, consists of Walsh and two part-time assistants, along with a volunteer corps of 16 Community Service Representatives ranging from sophomores to graduate students.

Walsh admits that of all the projects his office has run, he is most proud of the Treats for Troops initiative that was conducted last fall. “It was a great opportunity to make people aware that there was a new office here, plus we tapped into a very real need,” he said.

Community Service Representatives and other student volunteers, including the Veterans Club and Homeland Security Club, collected more than $3,500 and were able to fill 100 “care packages” with a variety of badly needed items to send to U.S. troops — mainly John Jay students or alumni

— serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.In a similar vein, a Hunger Banquet held at the

College last December helped to dramatize the issue of unequal food distribution worldwide, while raising funds for Oxfam and the nearby St. Paul the Apostle’s Food Pantry.

The Red Hook Community Court in Brooklyn is the agency through which grant funds are obtained to provide stipends to the Community Service Representatives. Feedback from the Red Hook court as well as the Midtown Community Court in Manhattan, where John Jay volunteers conduct mentoring and GED tutoring programs, has been overwhelmingly favorable, Walsh said.

“We get calls all the time from outside entities, and unfortunately we can’t partner with all of them,” Walsh said. “We have to be very strategic in choosing partners, so we can leverage assets and make the most of limited funds.”

[For more information, call 646.557.4820, or e-mail [email protected]. The office also has a Facebook fan page that can be accessed at “Office of Community Outreach @ John Jay.”]

Community Service & Outreach Providea Calling for John Jay Student Volunteers

Community Service Representatives greet a student at the recent Freshman Orientation and talk about what they do to

make a difference in the lives of others.








ON BOARDMARLENNE NUNEZ (Athletics) was named head coach of the women’s softball team. Nunez, a former four-year player on the team and an assistant coach last season, succeeds LAURA DRAZDOWSKI, who coached the team for three years and is now Assistant Director of Athletics for Budget and Finance and Co-Compliance Officer. Nunez’s assistant coach will be fellow John Jay alumna DANIELLE BONICI, a four-year CUNY Athletic Conference all-star as a member of the softball team.

BETWEEN THE COVERSCANDACE MCCOY (Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice) edited Holding Police Accountable, published by the Urban Institute Press as the first of “The John Jay Series.” Contributors to the book all participated in a conference on police accountability held

at the College in 2006, honoring the scholarly legacy of the late Distinguished Professor James Fyfe. In addition to editing the book and writing its preface, McCoy contributed a chapter titled “How Lawsuits Improve American Policing.”

DANIEL L. FELDMAN (Public Management) is co-author, along with Gerald Benjamin, of Tales from the Sausage Factory: Making Laws in New York State, which was published in September by SUNY Press. Feldman is a former Assemblyman who represented southern Brooklyn from 1981 to 1998.

GEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Political Science) guest-edited the most recent issue of the journal Criminal Justice Ethics. The theme of the special issue is “The Ethics of Intervention/Protection: Contending Approaches.” This issue is based on papers presented at a research workshop held at the College in January of this year, under the joint auspices of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and the Center for International Human Rights.

LUIS BARRIOS (Latin American and Latina/o Studies) authored “Reflections and Lived Experiences of Afro-Latina/o Religiosity,” which appears in The Afrolatin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, edited by Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores and published

earlier this year by Duke University Press. Another article, “Von der Bander zur sozialen Bewegung: Das Beipiel der Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation,” was published in Jugendliche in Gewaltsamen Lebenswelten: Wage aus den Kreisläufen der Gewalt, edited by Sabine Kurtenbach, Rüdiger Blümor and Sebastian Huhn and published in August by the German Institute of Global Area Studies.

EDWARD SNAJDR (Anthropology) recently published the chapter “Balancing Acts: Women’s NGOs Combating Domestic Violence in Kazakhstan,” which appears in Domestic Violence in Post-Communist States, edited by Katalin Fabian (Indiana University Press, 2010).

PRESENTING…BENJAMIN LAPIDUS (Art and Music) performed with his Latin jazz band Sonido Isleño at the FB Lounge in Manhattan on September 24 in a show celebrating 14 years and five albums of original music.

PEER REVIEWKATHLEEN COLLINS (Library) had her book, Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows (Continuum, 2009), selected for the 2010 Peter C. Rollins Book Award by the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association.

Two current members of the John Jay faculty and a former Distinguished Professor will be part of the six-member judging panel for the sixth annual John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Prizes for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting.

Stephen Handelman, Director of John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice, noted that the jury will include Alexa Capeloto, an assistant professor of English and former enterprise editor for The San Diego Tribune, and Greg Donald-son, an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts and the author of the newly published Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small-Town America.

They will be joined by John Jay’s former Distinguished Professor Todd Clear, who is now Dean of the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice.

The national journalism prizes are awarded annually to recognize high-quality reporting that has had a significant impact on the public’s understanding of criminal justice.

“This is the only national prize awarded for criminal justice journalism and has been called the ‘Pulitzer’ of crime journalism for a good reason,” said Handelman. “It not only acknowl-edges the superb work currently being done by U.S. crime and justice reporters but helps to ensure that the work continues at a time when the media industry is under constant challenge. We expect that the high quality of our judges this year will be matched by the quality of our entries for the prize.”

The other members of the judging panel are:• Joe Domanick, award-winning investiga-

tive journalist and author of Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State;

• Ted Gest, president and co-founder of Criminal Justice Journalists, former legal/justice reporter for U.S. News & World Report, and author of Crime and Politics;

• Larry Olmstead, former managing editor of The Miami Herald, and past president of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors.

The prizes will be presented at the College on January 31, 2011, as part of the annual Guggen-heim Symposium on Crime in America.

[For more information about submissions, prize rules and eligibility, contact Cara Tabach-nick, CMCJ Deputy Director, at [email protected].]

Former London Metropolitan Police Commis-sioner Sir Ian Blair, who presided over England’s largest police force from 2005 to 2008, has joined John Jay as a visiting professor, conducting research, teaching seminars and giving lectures through the end of October.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his long and distinguished police service, in 2010 Blair became a member of the House of Lords when he was named Lord Blair of Boughton.

Now a speaker, writer and consultant on strategic policing, police leadership and security issues, Blair came to John Jay at the specific re-quest of President Jeremy Travis. In addition to working with such College entities as the Center on Terrorism, Blair will be the featured speaker at an event in late October that the President’s Of-fice is sponsoring.

In addition, Blair will use his time at John Jay to continue his own police history research, which focuses on the 19th-century evolution and expansion of the British model of policing. He has already authored one book, the well-received Policing Controversy, which is part memoir of his

tenure as Commissioner, part history of the Lon-don police and part reflection on the stresses and challenges of modern policing.

Blair’s leadership was tested almost from the outset when a series of terrorist bombing at-tacks targeted the London transit system in July 2005. Fifty-two people were killed when bombs were set off in three trains and a bus. “London-ers weren’t quite ready for an attack such as this,” Blair recalled. “When the bombs went off, I promptly went on the telly to let people know that it’s going to be all right.”

Scotland Yard, as the Metropolitan Police Service is familiarly known, provides police pro-tection for Greater London in addition to having national responsibilities for counterterrorism and dignitary protection. As such, Blair is credited with enhancing the agency’s commitment to community-minded policing and diversity within the ranks.

Blair won a reputation as a pull-no-punches, free-speaking public official — one that he feels is generally deserved. “I refuse to see police as being little more than street butlers,” he said.

“And I tend to agree with the notion that ‘lead-ers are like teabags — you don’t know how strong they’ll be until they’re in hot water.’”

For Blair, that hot water came sooner than he might have wished when, just days after the London transit bombings, police shot and killed an unarmed man they mistakenly believed was a suicide bomber. The shooting, along with the controversial police handling of the incident and its aftermath, created a stir that reportedly led Blair to briefly consider resigning.

The British police establishment, he believes, is well equipped to handle the current threat of ter-rorism, and he plans to address England’s current status in various talks during his stay at John Jay.

Educated at Oxford, with a degree in English language and literature, Blair joined the Metro-politan Police in 1974, under a program known as the High Potential Developer Scheme for Graduates. A native of Chester, near Liverpool, his local Chief Constable told him that if he was serious about a police career, he should move to London. He was, he did and the rest is a cele-brated history that continues to be written.

The Blair Facts:

Former London PC Comes to John Jay

ERRATAThe article on John Jay’s newest faculty in the September 15 issue incorrectly listed the terminal degree for Assistant Professor Denise Thompson of the Department of Public Management. She has a PhD from Penn State. Also, the article inadvertently omitted a new member of the Department of Philosophy. Associate Professor Cath-erine Kemp, a specialist in the philosophy of law and modern philosophy, holds a PhD from Stony Brook and a JD from the University of Texas Law School.

Sir Ian Blair, as he appears on the cover of his 2009 memoir.

Judges Named for CJ Journalism CompetitionCulminating a two-year effort by a multi-

disciplinary task force, the CUNY Board of Trustees in July approved a comprehensive new policy aimed at protecting and assisting student victims of sexual assault, stalking and domestic and intimate-partner violence.

The policy includes guidelines for students and

counselors, establishes disciplinary procedures and on-campus advocacy positions for students, provides education and training for faculty and staff, and ensures assistance for students in obtaining medical care and counseling.

Dr. Katie Gentile, Director of the John Jay Women’s Center, was a member of the CUNY-

Anti-Sex Assault Protocols Unveiled by CUNY

FUN CITY REVISITED

President Jeremy Travis represented the College on September 14 as the Museum of

the City of New York presented a special symposium on “Criminal Justice & the Lindsay

Years,” part of an extended retrospective on the administration of New York Mayor

John V. Lindsay. The panel was moderated by veteran reporter Sam Roberts (2nd from

left) and included Baruch College history professor Clarence Taylor along with former

Lindsay Administration officials Michael Armstrong, William Vandenheuvel, Jay Kriegel

and Herbert Sturz, and New York University law professor Jerome Skolnick.

wide Sexual Assault Task Force convened by Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs Frederick P. Schaffer. “A handful of super-active students and members of campus women’s centers have been agitating for a while for the need for such a policy,” Gentile recalled. “It was needed in order to develop and implement standardized procedures for dealing with the issues and training people who help students who are victims of such violence.”

Required under New York State Education Law, the policy spells out the essential elements of reporting incidents of sexual assault and other forms of violence, recognizing the need for different points of on-campus contact for students, faculty and staff, such as public safety departments, women’s/men’s centers and counseling departments, and/or the Dean of Student of Development/Student Affairs.

Victims/survivors are urged to contact law enforcement personnel immediately, seek prompt medical attention and obtain on-campus assis-tance, including the help of a campus advocate.

The president and vice president for student development of each college are responsible for implementing the policy “in accordance with the most up-to-date information and resources pertaining to sexual assault, stalking and domestic/intimate partner violence education and prevention, and victim assistance.” A copy of the policy is accessible on the College’s Web site (www.jjay.cuny.edu/1974.php). CUNY’s Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs will monitor compliance with the policy and procedures and review their implementation on an annual basis.


September 15, 2010

The two-day freshman orientation program held August 18–19 marked a significant milestone for John Jay, as the College welcomed its first-ever all-baccalaureate freshman class.

A record 85 percent of the more than 2,000 enrolled freshmen attended the orientation, along with 433 parents. The College has also enrolled nearly 1,200 transfer students and 480 new graduate students for the fall semester. Those students attended separate orientation programs in late August.

“This is a historic moment for the College,” said President Jeremy Travis. With the enrollment of the first-ever all-baccalaureate class, the College has reached a pivotal milestone in its transformation into a senior college in the City University of New York system.”

The new John Jay students will benefit from the College’s “improved student services, renowned faculty scholars and re-imagined academic programs,” Travis said.

Vice President for Enrollment Management Richard Saulnier said preliminary data show a record-breaking 24-percent increase in baccalaureate freshman enrollment compared to 2009.

John Jay College already has a magnetic ap-peal for students interested in a justice-themed education. That appeal is only likely to increase with the anticipated rollout of a new video tour hosted by two telegenic young undergraduates.

The six-and-a-half-minute video tour, which will be launched on the John Jay website in late September, will also be accessible via Facebook, YouTube and iTunes University. It is the result of a collaborative effort involving the College’s Office of Marketing & Development and the Office of Enrollment Management together with WideIris Productions, which has created a number of top-flight videos for the College in the recent past.

Shot in numerous on- and off-campus venues, from the Lloyd Sealy Library to the heart of Times Square, the video features Christopher Balda and Devynn Brooks, who survived a two-day audition process en route to becoming the new faces of John Jay.

“Had I been a year younger, maybe I could have met some of the people who based their choice to go to John Jay on this video,” said Balda, a senior majoring in political science. “John Jay College has given so much to me, I’m glad that I can give something back.”

“I feel really excited and honored,” Brooks said of her involvement in the project. “Knowing that I can help with the choices a student makes about his or her college career is a really great

feeling.”The aim of the video, Balda explained, was to

provide insight into the daily life of a John Jay student as well as the broad spectrum of avail-able opportunities “to go out and become some-one significant in life.”

“The reason I think the video can spark inter-est for prospective students is because it comes

MAJOR DECISIONS: As part of their introduction to the College, incoming freshmen look over the flyers and brochures

describing the array of baccalaureate majors at John Jay.

Through a Lens, Smartly:

Virtual Tour Gets Ready for Online Debut

The start of the fall 2010 semester saw John Jay welcome 20 new full-time faculty members in 13 academic departments. The newest additions include specialists to support recently added majors in Economics, English, Gender Studies and Global History.

President Jeremy Travis noted that the faculty hiring was achieved in the midst of a period of fiscal constraint. “We have placed a priority on faculty hiring,” Travis said. The “stellar new full-time faculty…have been credentialed at some of the leading institutions around the world. Some have left tenured positions at other universities to join John Jay. We celebrate their commitments to excellence in teaching and scholarship, and their interest in engaging our students.”

The new faculty members, along with their terminal degrees, granting institutions and areas of specialization, are:

AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIESIsaac Xerxes Malki, assistant professor, DPhil,

University of Oxford (economic and social history)

ART AND MUSICClaudia Calirman, assistant professor, PhD, CUNY

Graduate Center (Latin American art)

CRIMINAL JUSTICEMichael Maxfield, professor, PhD, Northwestern

University (environmental criminology)Sung-suk Violet Yu, assistant professor, PhD,

Rutgers University–Newark (crime prevention/analysis)

ECONOMICSMathieu Dufour, assistant professor, MA,

University of British Columbia (international financial economics)

ENGLISHDale Barleben, assistant professor, PhD, University

of Toronto (literature and law)

FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURESSilvia G. Dapía, professor and department

chair, PhD, University of Cologne, Germany (Romance languages/philosophy of language)

GENDER STUDIESBrett Stoudt, assistant professor, PhD, CUNY

Graduate Center (social/personality psychology)

HISTORYSara McDougall, assistant professor, PhD, Yale

University (late-medieval French history)

LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINA/O STUDIESIsabel Martinez, assistant professor, PhD,

Columbia University (sociology of immigration)Brian Montes, assistant professor, PhD,

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (anthropology)

Lisandro Pérez, professor and department chair, PhD, University of Florida (ethnicity and immigration/Cubans in the U.S.)

Belinda Rincon,, assistant professor, PhD, Cornell University (American ethnic literature)

PHILOSOPHYJonathan Jacobs, professor and director of the

Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics, PhD, University of Pennsylvania (philosophy of law and punishment)

POLITICAL SCIENCEJennifer Rutledge, assistant professor, PhD,

University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (comparative politics/public policy)

PUBLIC MANAGEMENTDaniel Feldman, associate professor, JD, Harvard

Law School (oversight and investigation/public law and policy)

Denise Thompson, assistant professor, DPA, Pennsylvania State University (network analysis in disaster management)

SCIENCESandra Swenson, lecturer, EdD, Columbia

University Teachers College (student learning/pedagogical practice/curriculum design)

SOCIOLOGYCarla Barrett, assistant professor, PhD, CUNY

Graduate Center (sociology of punishment/race and law)

Despite Austerity, 20 New Faculty Join John Jay

The orientation event capped a four-year process of phasing out associate-degree admissions at John Jay. Associate-degree students are now eligible to enroll in two-year programs

in criminal justice, forensic science and forensic financial analysis through the CUNY Justice Academy, a consortium effort involving John Jay and six CUNY community colleges.

from the mouths of two down-to-earth regular New Yorkers,” he said.

The entire experience was “a blast,” Brooks said. “The video was shot in about three to four days, and I wished it could have gone on longer.”

Once having enjoyed the video tour, viewers are encouraged to sign up as a John Jay VIP by logging on to mykeytojjc.com

TOUR GUIDES: Christopher Balda and Devynn Brooks stroll up 10th Avenue toward Haaren Hall to begin the new virtual tour

of John Jay.

History is Made:

First All-Baccalaureate Class Settles InWorth NotingSeptember 16 12:30 PMThe 4th Amendment in the 21st Century: What Does It Mean? Whom Does It Protect?A panel discussion in celebration of Constitution Day. Presented bythe Center on Race, Crime and Justice

Room 630, Haaren Hall

September 23 2:00 PMGraduate and Professional School FairPresented by the Career Development Center, the Pre-Law Institute and the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies

RSVP by logging on to John Jay Careers Online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/careers


September 25 7:30 PMMusic for HumanityA narrated concert in memory of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl


September 28 3:30 PMFall Faculty MeetingGerald W. Lynch Theater

September 29 7:30 PMSound + Vision: At WarA multimedia performance of wartime images from Afghanistan and IraqPhotojournalist Chris HondrosMusical Director Kenneth Hamrick


October 4 3:00 PMGraduate Open HouseGerald W. Lynch Theater

RSVP: 212.237.8863








The John Jay Athletics Department will begin the 2010-2011 academic year with the return of a women’s soccer team.

The newest varsity sport on campus will give John Jay 13 intercollegiate teams, including men’s baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis and cross-country; women’s softball, basketball, swimming, volleyball, tennis and cross-country, and co-ed rifle.

“We are very excited to bring a women’s soc-cer team to John Jay,” said Director of Athletics Dan Palumbo. “It has been a very desirable sport on the campus for a long time.”

The team will be led by head coach Kamal Haruna, a John Jay alumnus who played for the men’s soccer team from 2006 through 2008 and was an assistant coach of the team last year.

“Our goal is to win the conference,” Haruna said of his squad that includes former high school players, local club players. “The girls are respond-ing well to practices and drills, they’re getting fit and they’re getting excited.”

Haruna described the team as an offense-ori-ented unit, with great midfielders and forwards, including team captain Brenda Pitts, a graduate student. “We’re going to score goals, no ques-tion about it,” he said.

The new team’s season got underway Septem-ber 3 at SUNY Purchase. “I’m excited by the chal-lenge, and so are the girls,” the coach said. “It’s a new program and they want it to stay around.”

The College previously fielded a women’s soc-cer team in 2005.

John Jay’s fall sports schedule also includes cross-country, which began its season on Sep-tember 4 at the Vassar Invitational in Poughkeep-sie, NY; men’s soccer, which began on September 1 at Kean University; volleyball, which started on September 2 at Ramapo College, and women’s tennis, which got underway on September 1 at William Paterson University.

The volleyball team’s home court is the Dog-house, John Jay’s 4th-floor gymnasium in Haaren Hall. Home field for both the men’s and women’s soccer teams is the Metropolitan Oval in Mas-peth, Queens. The tennis team plays its home matches at the York College Tennis Complex in Jamaica, Queens, and conference meets for the cross-country teams are held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. For complete team informa-tion, visit www.johnjayathletics.com.

Women’s Soccer Returns tothe John Jay Sports Universe

PRESENTING…R.TERRY FURST (Anthropology) presented a paper titled �Buprenorphine (Suboxone) Patients in a Harm Reduction Setting: An Exploration of the Correlates Leading to Suboxone Patients Cycling In and Out of Treatment, at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, held in Atlanta, GA, on August 15. He was also one of the authors of a poster presentation, “Buprenorphine Plus Syringe Access: An Effective Harm Reduction Strategy, at the International AIDS conference held in Vienna, Austria, on July 21

BETWEEN THE COVERSGREG DONALDSON (Communication and Theatre Arts) had his latest book, Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small-Town America, published in August by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

ROBERT GAROT (Sociology) had his book, Who You Claim: Performing Gang Identity in School

and on the Streets, published by NYU Press.

LIOR GIDEON (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) is the author of Substance Abusing Inmates: Experiences of Recovering Drug Addicts on their Way Back Home, which was published earlier this year by Springer.

MANGAI NATARAJAN (Criminal Justice) is the series editor of the three-volume Library of Drug Abuse and Crime, released recently by Ashgate Publishing. The series includes Drugs of Abuse: The International Scene; Drugs and Crime; and Drug Abuse: Prevention and Treatment.

PEER REVIEWYÜKSEL SEZGIN (Political Science) was named as a 2010-2011 Research Associate in the

Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Sezgin, who will also serve as visiting assistant professor of women’s studies and religion and the social sciences, will conduct research for a study titled “Women’s Rights in the Triangle of State, Law and Religion.”

SAMANTHA MAJIC (Political Science) won the 2010 Best Dissertation Award from the Women and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. The awards committee praised Majic’s dissertation — “Protest By Other Means? Sex Workers, Social Movement Evolution, and the Political Possibilities of Nonprofit Service Provision” — as an original and incisive work that “shed light on some of the key issues at play at the intersection of gender and politics.” [Corrected from previous edition.]

The nascent distance-learning initiative at John Jay recently got a significant shot in the arm thanks to $600,000 in earmarks in New York City’s FY 2011 capital budget.

The funding, sponsored in equal proportions by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Gail Brewer, will be used to support the ongoing development of the College’s technology infrastructure, including the purchase and installation of video conferencing units, network support upgrades and communications equipment.

“This will support initiatives that allow the College to transcend the geographic limits of the traditional classroom,” said Director of Government Relations Elizabeth McCabe.

City Council OKs Funds for John Jay Distance Learning

No mere job-placement program, John Jay’s Office of Career Development Services provides a balanced variety of on-site and online services, educational and professional development programs and resource materials to help students and alumni make a successful transition from college to one’s chosen profession.

The office, led by Director Will Simpkins, offers everything from comprehensive career advisement to internships and cooperative education to guidance on professional dress and business etiquette. “There are three substantive areas that any career development center needs to focus on: career advisement and graduate school planning, internships and cooperative education, and networking,” said Simpkins, whose staff of 15 also runs the sprawling Career Fair and Job Fair held during the fall and spring semesters.

Career Development Services, which includes the College Opportunity to Prepare for Employment (COPE) program, has been undergoing a dramatic makeover since Simpkins arrived at John Jay earlier this year, after nine years in various student affairs positions at Barnard College. He said he was drawn to John Jay by the College’s public-service focus.

“Everyone wants a job that challenges them,” he said, “and for me the challenge is blowing a student’s mind with the wide range of opportunities available to them via John Jay.”

Among the “most exciting” developments for Career Development Services this year, Simpkins said, have been new drop-in counseling hours for students; a growing series of workshops and panels on professional and life skills, with 30 workshops scheduled for the fall semester alone; a weekly e-mail update to all John Jay students;

greater opportunities to bring alumni and students together, and the planned launch of the College’s first “clothing closet” for job-seeking students.

The engine that drives Career Development Services — “the thing that helps us do what we do,” said Simpkins — is John Jay Careers Online, a two-year-old, custom-designed software package that he described as a social networking site combined with a job board. Through the portal, students and alumni alike can view available internships, full- and part-time jobs

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORYPanelists enjoy a lighter moment during a discussion of a very serious topic, at the September 1 Book & Author presenta-

tion that featured Jessica Stern (center), author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror, her candid and intense examination of an

unsolved brutal rape and its aftermath. The discussion was moderated by Professor Katie Gentile, Director of the John Jay

Women’s Center (left), and also included commentary by Professor Susan Herman of Pace University, a former executive

director of the National Center for Victims of Crime.

and volunteer opportunities, as well as set up counseling appointments and register for events. Potential employers can post job openings, request space for job fairs and other events, review résumés and schedule interviews.

Simpkins stressed, “The office can’t be successful without a dedicated partnership with our alumni,” citing the ongoing engagement with the College’s Office of Alumni Relations. “Anytime we can put students in touch with someone who can help further their careers is a very good thing,” he said.

Student interaction with career development is not something that should wait until junior or senior year. “As soon as you come to John Jay,” said Simpkins, “make an appointment to see us and start a conversation about your future plans.”

Dressed for success, John Jay students navigate their way past table after table of potential employers at a recent Job Fair.

Career Development for Students Starts on Day One

JANE KATZ (Health and Physical Education) represented John Jay at the June 3 global launch of the “Exercise is Medicine” initiative, held in Baltimore, MD, by the American College of Sports Medicine.

Beat the High Cost ofBuying Textbooks!

Rent Selected Titles from the John Jay College Bookstore!

Varied Payment Options!

Option to Purchase!

Highlighting in Books is OK!

For details, visit the bookstore in the Westport Building or go online

to www.jjay.bncollege.com.


August 25, 2010

Worth NotingSeptember 1 4:00 PMBook & Author SeriesDenial: A Memoir of TerrorJessica SternHoover Institute Task Force onNational Security and Law


September 14 6:00 PMCriminal Justice &The Lindsay YearsKeynote Speaker: Police Commissioner Raymond W. KellyModerator: Sam Roberts,The New York Times

Museum of the City of New York1220 Fifth Avenue (103rd Street)RSVP required: [email protected] 917.492.3395

September 25 7:30 PMMusic for HumanityA narrated concert in memory ofWall Street Journal journalistDaniel Pearl


September 28 3:30 PMFall Faculty MeetingGerald W. Lynch Theater

September 29 7:30 PMSound + Vision: At WarA multimedia performance of wartime images from Afghanistan and IraqPhotojournalist Chris HondrosMusical Director Kenneth HamrickFeaturing the music ofJohann Sebastian Bach


October 4 3:00 PMGraduate Open HouseGerald W. Lynch Theater

RSVP: 212.237.8863

John Jay recently flexed its technological muscles, becoming the first CUNY college — and one of only a few nationwide — to have its own smart-phone app.

The application, downloadable free for iPhone and Droid users, provides access to the College’s sports news and schedules, calendar of events, admissions information, telephone directory, faculty profiles, John Jay mobile sites, social media, college newsletters and more. Users are

A crime summit held at John Jay on July 28-29 marked the first time that a broad coalition of elected and criminal justice officials gathered with community experts in New York City to collectively address national trends in prosecution, crime prevention and crime reduction strategies.

The symposium — “Communities & Justice: Partnerships & Challenges for the 21st Century” — was co-sponsored by the College, the Office of the Manhattan District Attorney and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. Participants included prosecutors, judges and police executives from New York, New Jersey and other states from Massachusetts to Oregon, along with representatives from community and nongovernmental groups. Attendees heard keynote remarks from featured speakers Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Newark, NJ, Police Director Garry F. McCarthy.

“There is no greater mission for law enforcement and government than keeping our residents safe,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance. “This symposium is the realization of a goal many of us have shared for more than a year — to bring together great minds in many disciplines to bring forth the best ideas for keeping our streets safe and our justice system fair.”

“Through an open exchange of diverse ideas,” added President Jeremy Travis, “we can build on each other’s strengths and expertise and develop new approaches for addressing some of our nation’s most complex criminal justice issues.”

Some of the issues under the microscope during the symposium included conviction integrity, restorative justice, problem-solving courts, immigration, education and gang alternatives for youth, new crime prevention strategies, hot-button issues affecting communities and law enforcement, community prosecution and prisoner reentry.

“With cities and states from coast to coast facing a third consecutive year of shrinking revenues, police, prosecutors and courts are all being asked to do more with less,” said Bloomberg. “How we rise to that challenge is critical to the people that we serve and what we do to keep our streets safe will help create the sense of confidence crucial to making full economic recovery a reality.”

“Our police officers have made New York City a model for the nation by driving crime down 36 percent since 2002 despite a tough economy, fewer resources and the demands of counterterrorism,” said Kelly. “We look forward to comparing the proactive strategies they have employed to make this possible with the best ideas from across the country at this unique

The standing ovation that greeted the June 24 announcement that Johnny Taveras, John Jay’s web manager, was the recipient of the 2010 Outstanding Employee of the Year Award made it clear that his unanimous selection by the Bravo! awards committee was an overwhelmingly popular one.

Taveras, a member of the Office of Marketing and Development, has been with John Jay since 1988. As the web manager, he and his two-person staff — Ahn Phan and Lenis Perez — play a pivotal role in all of the College’s online efforts. He has been one of the prime architects of the redesigned John Jay Web site, the faculty and staff intranet Inside John Jay and the student intranet Jay Stop. His team established the College’s presence on iTunes University, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And, he created a John Jay app for iPhone and Droid smart phones. [See related story, at right.]

“Johnny works at 110 percent of capacity year-round and delivers throughout the year an unbelievable amount of energy, commitment and courtesy,” said Vice President for Marketing and Development Vivien Hoexter in presenting

Taveras’s award. “Almost everyone in the College has, at one point, come in contact with him. No matter how last-minute the request, Johnny, always with a smile, tries to accommodate. He juggles many tasks and never seems to get flustered.”

In addition to his web-management responsibilities, Taveras serves as coordinator of the annual Jack Brennan Children’s Holiday Party.

The Outstanding Employee of the Year Award was presented at a luncheon during the Bravo! Summer Employee Institute. In addition to Taveras, Dean for Human Resources Donald Gray acknowledged the latest group of Bravo! divisional award winners. They are:

Kristina Borowski (Registrar); Mariluz Bribiesca (Honors, Awards and Special Opportunities); Mario Chabau (Facilities Management); Kinya Chandler (Academic Affairs); Nadia Griffith-Allen (Accessibility Services); Nyeema Morgan (Art and Music); Michael Merseburg (Central Receiving/Stockroom); Valentina Morgan (Enrollment Management); Bill Pangburn (Instructional Technology Support Services); David Rivera (Public Safety); Michael Rohdin (First Year Experience);

Johnny Taveras, the 2010 Outstanding Employee of the

Year, along with five of his biggest fans — (from left)

daughters Christa, Shantelle, Jonelle and Christine, and

President Travis.

Here’s Johnny! Hard-Working, Easygoing WebmasterIs College’s 2010 Outstanding Employee of the Year

Janet Rubel (Finance and Administration, and Linda Von Lumm (Facilities Management).

John Jay Leads the Waywith First Smart-Phone App

able to connect with John Jay faculty and staff, register via smart-phone for events at the College and get the latest college news updates.

“This exciting innovation will enable us to connect with our entire college community as well as prospective students, through the communications systems that they use daily,” said President Jeremy Travis.

The app was created in-house by John Jay’s web manager, Johnny Taveras, who read more than 15 books on building a smart-phone app before he started the actual design and construction. He then applied to Apple and Android for approval to make the John Jay app available through their respective app stores. It proved to be a home run on his first swing.

“While the entire process from construction through approval was quite a learning experience for me, I was delighted that the College’s app was accepted on our first submission,” Taveras said. [See also related story on Taveras, at left.]

The new app can be downloaded for iPhone users through the iTunes store (www.iTunes.com/Downloads) and for Droid users through the Android Marketplace (www.android.com/market).

High-Profile ‘Crime Summit’ ExaminesCriminal Justice Challenges & Solutions

DA Cyrus Vance, Borough President Scott Stringer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (seated, left to right) listen as President

Jeremy Travis drives home a point in opening remarks during the “Communities & Justice” crime summit held at the College

July 28.

conference.”Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,

a John Jay alumnus, applauded Vance and Travis for their leadership roles in organizing the crime summit. “The summit is the latest effort from a DA’s office which has demonstrated its visionary and forward-looking approach to law enforcement,” Stringer said.








ON BOARDKAMAL HARUNA (Athletics) was named head coach of the newly formed women’s soccer team. A native of Ghana, Haruna was an assistant coach of the men’s soccer team in 2009, and a member of that team as a student from 2006 through 2008. He received his bachelor’s degree from John Jay in 2008. The Athletics program has also named BRITTANY FOUT as head coach of the women’s volleyball team. She was an assistant coach of the team last season.

PRESENTING…MICHAEL PFEIFER (History) presented a paper titled “The Bitter Seed of Albion and Eire: Extralegal Violence and Law in the Early Modern British Isles and the Origins of American Lynching” at a conference, Toward an International History of Lynching, held at the University of Heidelberg in Germany on June 4.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was named to the Speakers’ Bureau at Edgecombe Prison in New York City. She spoke to the entire inmate population on June 18 about the coping skills required for satisfactory reentry into society after

incarceration. In July, she participated in a virtual presentation of her “conversational pedagogy” teaching style at the International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies at the University of Barcelona in Spain.

BETWEEN THE COVERSJEFFREY HEIMAN and ADAM BERLIN (English), co-editors of the College’s J Journal, recently received a superlative-laden review of the periodical in The Review Review, an online roundup and critique of literary journals. The Website praised the fall 2009 issue of the J Journal as “a mouthwatering literary surprise” and a “smartly put-together collection of writing.” Heiman and Berlin, the reviewer said, “have taken on a big challenge, and they deliver.”

MARGARET WALLACE and DIANA FRIEDLAND (Sciences) published a paper “Genotyping diptera using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP): Development of a genetic marker system for species in the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae.” Appearing in the current issue of the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, the article was co-authored with Jason C. Beckert, who received his master’s degree in forensic science from John Jay in 2009 and is now a research microscopist with Microtrace Scientific LLC in Elgin, IL.

FAINA FRADKIN (Human Resources) had her book, The Pictures from My Childhood, published by a division of RusKniga, a Moscow publishing house. The book is a collection of Russian language stories, based primarily on her childhood in Moldova in the former Soviet

Union, along with an essay in English about her experience during the events of 9/11.

PEER REVIEWSAMANTHA MAJIC (Political Science) won the 2010 Best Dissertation Award from the Women and Politics Section of the American Society for Public Administration. The awards committee praised Majic’s dissertation — “Protest By Other Means? Sex Workers, Social Movement Evolution, and the Political Possibilities of

Professor Ned Benton (r.) of the Department of Public Management led a delegation of faculty members and graduate

students from the MPA-Inspector General program who attended the national Association of Inspectors General conference

in Indianapolis, IN, on May 12–14. The John Jay representatives met with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (l.) who, after hearing

a description of the MPA-IG program and getting a taste of the research being conducted by John Jay graduate students,

announced that he planned to replicate John Jay’s program in Indiana. Among the featured speakers at the conference was

John Jay alumnus Frank Straub (MA ‘90, PhD ‘97), who is Director of Public Safety for the City of Indianapolis.

Nonprofit Service Provision” — as an original and incisive work that “shed light on some of the key issues at play at the intersection of gender and politics.”

MARIA R. VOLPE (Sociology) received the 2010 Achievement Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York at its annual conference on June 24. She was recognized for her innovative work in the dispute resolution field.

Recent months have brought a number of new appointments to the academic leadership team at John Jay, including two new associate provosts.

On July 19, James Llana joined the College as Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness, a role that will include leading the implementation and ongoing assessment of the Master Plan, John Jay @ 50, and helping to lead the Middle States self-study and reaccreditation process. Llana, who holds a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University, was a member of the faculty at SUNY/Old Westbury for 25 years, including seven years as chair of its interdisciplinary humanities program, and for the past five years, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Karen Terry of the Department of Criminal Justice, who has been serving as Executive Officer of the John Jay/CUNY Graduate Center PhD Program in Criminal Justice, was named Interim Associate Provost and Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships. Terry will take the reins of the Office for the Advancement of Research from James Levine, who will retire on August 31. In an expanded role, she will oversee the Institutional Review Board and the Office of Sponsored Programs, as well as the College’s many centers and institutes.

In other appointments and transitions, Provost Jane Bowers announced that Professor Nathan Lents of the Science Department will head a newly created Office of Undergraduate Research. Lents, a molecular biologist, has been actively involved in the area of educational technology and innovations since coming to John Jay.

English Professor John Matteson was named to a three-year term as Academic Director of the

With the high cost of college textbooks putting an ever-larger dent in students’ wallets, the John Jay College bookstore has launched a program of renting books to students at savings of more than 50 percent compared to the cost of purchasing new books.

Selected textbook titles may be rented from the bookstore, located at the Westport building. Students may use financial aid, campus debit cards or any other method accepted by the bookstore to pay for rental fees. Rentals may be converted to outright purchase within the first two weeks if a student decides to keep the book, and rented texts must be returned no later than 10 days after the last day of finals.

The use of highlighting and writing in books is permitted with rented texts.

For more information on the rental program, visit the bookstore or go online to www.jjay.bncollege.com.

BookstoreTackles High Cost of Buying Texts

New (and Old) Faces Join Academic Affairs LeadershipJohn Jay Honors Program. Matteson, who holds a law degree in addition to a doctorate in English, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.

Professor Dara Byrne of the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts will become the Interim Director of the SEEK Program and Interim Chair of the SEEK Department during

Popular ScienceThe streets around Manhattan’s Washington

Square Park were packed with curious passersby

eager for a peek at “The CSI Experience,” John

Jay’s contribution to the 2010 World Science

Festival street fair on June 6. Members of the

Department of Sciences, led by Professor Linda

Rourke, along with a cadre of student volunteers,

organized four tents with a variety of interactive

forensic exhibits and activities. The exhibit fea-

tured a cordoned-off “crime scene,” complete with

bloodied “corpse,” where visitors were encour-

aged to investigate the scene from a scientific per-

spective. Visitors numbering in the hundreds were

able to dust for latent fingerprints, assess blood-

spatter patterns, examine blood cells, hair and

insects under the microscope, and investigate fire-

arms evidence. Faculty/staff volunteers included:

Shu-Yuan Cheng, Peter Diaczuk, Alison Domzalski,

Don Hoffman, Lilja Nielsen, Argeliz Pomales and

Marcel Roberts. They were assisted by student

volunteers Michael Gittings, Eric Gosselin, Loretta

Kuo, Michael Lugo, Melinda Lui, Zuleyma Peralta,

Shay Smith, Anna Stoll, Alicia Williams, Cindi-Ann

Williams and Kyle Zavinsky.

the 2010-2011 academic year. Byrne, a specialist in intercultural communication and digital media, was a 2009 recipient of the College’s Distinguished Teaching Awards.

Professor Carmen Solis, a member of the SEEK Department, was selected as the Faculty Fellow in Graduate Studies, a role in which she will serve as associate to Dean of Graduate Studies Jannette Domingo for a three-year term.

John Jay College received a record $21 million in external grants during the 2009-2010 fiscal year. The funds — a 28.1-percent increase over the previous year, will be used to support research, education, training programs and community initiatives.

The grantees represent a cross-section of disciplines and academic departments, including mathematics, the sciences, anthropology, psychology, sociology, history and criminal justice. Funding entities included the Centers for Disease Control; the National Institutes of Health; the

U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Education and Justice; the National Science Foundation; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Ford Foundation; the McCormick Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the New York State Department of Education, and the New York City Department of Correction.

“This is a remarkable accomplishment,” said President Jeremy Travis, “a real tribute to our research-oriented faculty and to the solid support provided by our Office for the Advancement of

Research. We are particularly proud of the depth and scope of the research emanating from our scholars.”

Subjects for current faculty research include: Internet privacy protection and authenticity verification; HIV transmission among intravenous drug users; intimate partner violence reduction; right-wing extremism; childhood neglect and abuse; prisoner reentry; firearms and toolmark evidence; lineups and mistaken witness identification; digital crime, and Italian prison policy.

External Research Funding Sets New RecordFaculty Scholarship Brings in $21 Million from Wide Range of Sources


May 13, 2010

Yulia Gracheva, the salutatorian of the 2010 graduating class, knows the meaning of self-sufficiency. For nearly seven years, this 26-year-old Political Science major has lived on her own in New York City, doggedly pursuing her dream of being a lawyer, chalking up a perfect 4.0 grade point average at John Jay along the way. While many students can count on family members as a handy support system, Gracheva’s relatives are thousands of miles away in Russia, where her father is in the military.

“I came to the U.S. in 2003 on a student exchange visa and decided to stay,” she said. “I chose John Jay because I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer.”

Gracheva, who plans to take a year off after graduation to prepare for the LSAT, recalled that the road to her bachelor’s degree was not without its challenges. “When I came here, my English was not so good, but the Writing Center has been enormously helpful. Being here by myself, I had to learn to count on myself and believe in myself.”

Her college experience helped to shape her vision, she said. “I always knew I wanted to be an attorney, but now I know what interests me, what I’m good at and what to focus on.” Those interests include taxation law — “because I like numbers” — and constitutional law. Gracheva added that she has been “so blessed to have great professors,” singling out political science faculty member Janice Bockmeyer, her internship instructor.

Gracheva’s parting message to her fellow graduates is one born of her own experience: “You shouldn’t be discouraged. You can do it.”

Class of 2010 Gets Ready for Its Big Moment

“At the end of the day, I try to remember to have a little fun. I’m not only about studying.”

So says Gina Pagano, the 2010 class valedictorian, who sports a perfect 4.0 grade point average in Forensic Psychology. Pagano, a 21-year-old from Queens, is keenly interested in working with sex offenders and those coping with trauma, and she hopes to go on to a PhD in Clinical Psychology.

“I’ve always been interested in helping people,” says Pagano, “and I like getting to the root of problems. I feel people deserve if not a second chance, then at least a second look.”

Pagano, an admittedly “horrible standardized test-taker,” said her John Jay experience helped her to develop study and organization habits, enabling her to win both a Sophomore Scholarship and an Upper Division Scholarship. “Needless to say, I haven’t had much time for extracurricular activities,” she said ruefully,

Pagano’s parents get the credit for motivating her along the way. “My mom’s a former rock journalist who’s now an accountant, and my dad’s going to Baruch to get an accounting degree,” she explained. “They’ve both been very encouraging to me, helping me focus on what I can do and then getting it done.”

Being first in her class is something that Pagano says she “never in a million years could have imagined.” Still, she says she plans to remind her fellow graduates at Commencement that their destiny is their own. “For all of us, life has its speed bumps,” she said. “But I made my own success, and they can, too.”

They’re the Tops: What It Tookto Be #1 and #2 in Their Class

Pagano

Gracheva

At the 2010 Commencement, John Jay will salute three towering figures from the humanities — a journalist, a playwright/actress and a historian — with honorary doctorates.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has an unparalleled record of shedding light on injustice and human rights abuses that governments would have preferred to conceal. The stories he has broken over the past four decades have included the massacre at My Lai and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, CIA spying on American citizens, and the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison. He describes his role in national public affairs as a “vehicle for dissent.”

In 1970, he won the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his exposé of the My Lai massacre. Since then, he has also received five George Polk Awards, the Overseas Press Club Award, two Sidney Hillman Foundation Awards and two National Magazine Awards. His eight books include Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004); Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America’s Ailing Veterans and Their Government (1998); and The Dark Side of Camelot (1997).

Historian Taylor Branch was just 16 when he saw dogs and fire hoses turned against civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, AL. Years later, Branch began a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. that would be more than just the story of the murdered civil rights leader, but in fact provided a narrative history of a turbulent era.

Branch’s three-volume, 3,000-page work began with Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, for which he won both the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in History and that year’s Book Critics Circle Award. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65, came next, 10 years later, and won the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award among other prizes. In the final volume, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, Branch concluded with King’s assassination on April 4, 1968.

A professor at Goucher College in Maryland, Branch was also the ghostwriter of John Dean’s account of the Watergate scandal, Blind Ambition.

Playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith is

a pioneer and strident advocate of a new form of theater that is fundamentally committed to social justice and advancing community dialogue.

Smith has received numerous prestigious awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, multiple Tony Award nominations, an Obie Award for Best Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.

The subjects of her work are always controversial. In Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Smith explored the riots that shook that community in 1991 after a young African American boy was struck and killed by a car driven by a Hasidic man. Twilight: Los Angeles examined the Rodney King case. Her most recent work, Let Me Down Easy, is about health care and control over one’s body.

In addition to her theater work, Smith is also a familiar presence on television and in film, with roles in such productions as The West Wing, Philadelphia and The American President.

Smith teaches in New York University’s Tisch School of the Performing Arts and the NYU School of Law.

Honorees Taylor Branch (top); Anna Deavere Smith (above

left), and Seymour Hersh.

Doctoral Honorees TakeDifferent Approaches toFocusing on Justice Issues

More than 2,800 John Jay students are getting ready to “walk the walk” across the grand stage of the Theater at Madison Square Garden, as the College prepares for its 45th Commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 27.

The Class of 2010, comprising 2,226 undergraduate and 612 graduate students, will bid farewell to John Jay in two ceremonies differentiated by major, one at 10:30 AM and the other at 3:30 PM.

“It is hard to believe, but we are rapidly approaching the end of the school year and the celebrations that mark the awarding of degrees to our students,” said President Jeremy Travis. “For my part, I look forward to this festive celebration and to shaking the hands of each of our graduates as they walk across the stage of

the Theatre at Madison Square Garden.”The graduating class, which includes those

who completed their degrees in summer 2009, fall 2009 and spring 2010, consists of approximately 62 percent female and 38 percent male students. According to data compiled by the Registrar’s Office, 27.4 percent are white, 23.2 percent are black, 28.8 percent are Latino and 7.4 percent are Asian/Pacific. They range in age from 19 to 75.

The top two students in the class — the valedictorian and salutatorian — are both graduating with perfect 4.0 grade point averages. Profiles of Gina Pagano and Yulia Gracheva appear below.

At the Commencement ceremonies, the College will present honorary doctorates to

three leading figures in the humanities: historian Taylor Branch, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and playwright/actress Anna Deavere Smith. Thumbnail profiles of the honorees appear below; longer versions can be found on the college’s website.

For complete Commencement information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.

Commencement Week EventsDepartmental Awards ceremony

May 20Graduation Awards ceremony

May 25Night of the Stars dinner/dance

May 26







DREAM JOBS — Dreams of entering fed-eral law enforcement upon graduation have been realized for EDWIN GEORGE and GREGORY ALAN MARKS, who were both accepted into the U.S. Marshals Service this year.

George, 24, has already begun his training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, GA; Marks will be heading there in May. They had both interned with the Marshals Service through John Jay’s Cooperative Education pro-gram. “I absolutely love it,” said Marks, 23. “It’s exciting. You’re constantly moving, constantly working.”

“The co-op hiring process takes a long time,” said George, “but compared to coming out of college looking for a job, it’s a much easier way to get in.”

Both George and Marks will earn bachelor’s degrees in Criminal Justice from John Jay. “It was definitely a plus going to John Jay,” said George.

ONWARD AND UPWARD — One day, EDWIN HERNANDEZ GARCIA would like to be the president of his native country, the Dominican Republic. For now, the 22-year-old is preparing for his first semester at Quinnipiac University School of Law — another step toward achieving his cherished long-term goal.

Hernandez, a student in the BA/MPA program in Public Administration, is this year’s winner of the Leonard E. Reisman Medal for distinguished scholarship and exceptional service to John Jay. He was accepted to 29 of the 40 law schools to which he applied, but chose Quinnipiac in part because it offers more special programs in vari-ous types of law, including immigration law.

“Immigration and public policy interest me,” said Hernandez, who was the recipient of numer-ous undergraduate scholarships, fellowships and awards. “Here, we have immigrants coming to the United States every day, but we also have an issue with immigration in the Dominican Republic as well, and corruption in politics everywhere.”

HONING HER SKILLS — Whatever path MICHELLE A. HERSHKOWITZ pursues after graduation, the skills she honed at John Jay — organization, critical thinking and time man-agement — will serve her well, she believes.

Hershkowitz, 21, received the College’s first-ever Alumni Association Endowed Scholarship in 2008. A Forensic Psychology major, she was an Honors Program student and a member of Psi Chi, the international psychology honor society.

Last summer, Hershkowitz interned at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, an agency that she would like to return to as a trial-prepara-tion assistant for at least one year.

“It will give me time to think,” she said. “It’s very, very prestigious. I’m not really worried be-cause at John Jay I was given so many opportuni-ties and I decided to take them.”

AIR FORCE BRAT — She did not plan to become second-generation Air Force, but that is how things have turned out for SARAH-ANN

HORN, an “Air Force brat” who will enter the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO, in July, with an eye toward becoming a special agent in the investigative psychology branch.

Horn, whose father was in the Air Force, grew up in Italy and obtained her undergraduate de-gree from Jacobs University in Germany. At that point John Jay caught her attention. “I have been reading forensic psychology articles and papers for years now,” she said. “John Jay kept popping up here, there and everywhere.”

Horn will graduate this month with a master’s degree in Forensic Psychology. She has been interning full-time this semester at the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. By November, Horn will be a special agent, “handling investi-gations where my degree will certainly come in handy,” she said. Eventually, she would like to work in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.

AN EARLY START — American chil-dren at the age of 2 are still years away from kindergarten, but NADINE HYLTON’s formal education in Jamaica’s “ultra-competitive” school system began when she was just a toddler. It cer-tainly has paid off for Hylton, who plans to pur-sue a doctorate in Education Policy and Theory at the University of Rochester.

Hylton is graduating this month with bache-lor’s and master’s degrees in Forensic Psychology. A BA/MA student, she was also a McNair Scholar and a member of the Ronald H. Brown Pre-Law Program.

The Rochester doctoral program offered the “best of both worlds,” she said. One of the areas Hylton is considering is multicultural- and diver-sity-education studies, which would give her the opportunity to assess whether such programs could be implemented in urban school systems.

GOING FOR THE GOLD — SARA MOHARREM’s parents left behind a life of professional accomplishment in Egypt so that she and her siblings could have a better life. As Moharrem achieves her own successes, her parent’s sacrifices are never far from her mind.

Moharrem, 22, majored in Justice Studies. Last summer, an internship at Goldman Sachs paved the way for a full-time job with the investment firm’s global security division, which she will begin in July.

In September, Moharrem will take her LSATs and hopes to be admitted to either New York University School of Law or Columbia Law School. “A lot of my motivation is from my dad,” she said. “I want to make him really proud of me. My mom motivates me as well. She always says, ‘Go for the gold, do your best.’”

FIGHTING INJUSTICE — An injustice somewhere is an injustice everywhere, believes VICTORIA OYANIRAN, a recipient of a 2009 fellowship presented by the Women’s Forum Foundation and a student in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program.

Oyaniran, 36, hopes to go to Yale University

for a dual PhD/JD program in law, political econo-my and social politics. Ultimately, she sees herself as a public advocate working in the field of hu-man rights. “I have this drive to help the helpless and to speak for the speechless,” said Oyaniran, who was born in Nigeria. “Those speechless could be anywhere. They could be in the United States of America or in Nigeria.”

Oyaniran’s award from the Women’s Forum of New York is for older students who have had a break in their education, but have gone on to continue their studies and have shown excellence in their academic careers.

CHEMICAL REACTION — For at least the next five years, anyone who wants to find JASON QUINONES need only look for him at Stony Brook University, where the Forensic Science major will be earning his doctorate in pharmacology.

“I was one of those CSI students,” said Qui-nones, “but then I found out that it was mostly science work and not detective work. In my junior year, I found out I really liked biochemistry and toxicology.”

Quinones, who received scholarships under the statewide C-STEP program and John Jay’s PRISM initiative, wants to become a neuro-pharmacologist. “They look at how different biomolecular mechanisms in the body may be related to or trigger neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease,” he said.

PURSUING HER PASSION — There are very few prizes, special opportunities and schol-arships awarded by John Jay that 22-year-old DARAKSHAN RAJA has not won as a BA/MA student majoring in Forensic Psychology.

In addition to being a Justice Scholar and a Vera Fellow, Raja has also been the recipient of a Thurgood Marshall Scholarship and a Depart-ment of Homeland Security Graduate Assistant-ship, and has interned in the office of Judge Judy Harris Kluger, Chief of Policy and Planning for the New York State court system.

Raja’s long-term goal is to become a war crimes prosecutor in the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Human rights is a pas-sion for her. “I took the interdisciplinary program here at a point in my life that changed me in many ways,” said Raja. “Violence begets vio-lence; law, in the long run, stays.”

Raja will begin the law school application pro-cess next year, and nothing less than the best will do. “I want to get into the best law schools be-cause they have resources, they will open doors for me,” she said.

THE SCIENTIFIC MINDSET — A scien-tific research program at her high school sparked Forensic Science major KATHERINE REYNOSO’s interest in DNA analysis. Now she is one step closer to earning a PhD in molecular biology from the CUNY Graduate Center.

“I knew I wanted to be in the scientific com-munity,” said Raynoso, 23. “I looked into biology and I came upon the Forensic Science program at John Jay and was ecstatic. This was exactly what I wanted to study.”

Although Reynoso had been an honors stu-dent in science all through high school, her courses at John Jay were so hard, she said, that she did not always make all A’s. She admits to being “kind of scared” to apply for doctoral pro-grams. “Of the four schools I applied to, I got an interview at two of them, plus the CUNY Grad Center, which I got into,” she said. “You actually don’t know until you try.”

FOCUS ON FAMILY — While she was accepted to graduate social-work programs at Hunter College and New York University, CRISTAL RODRIGUEZ chose Fordham Univer-sity Graduate School of Social Work because of its concentration on clinical work with children and families.

Rodriguez will be graduating from John Jay with a bachelor’s degree in Deviant Behavior and Social Control, along with a Certificate in Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.

Rodriguez was a peer counselor from her sophomore through senior years. She developed a newsletter with a co-worker from the College’s Peer Counseling Program that reached out to students, particularly those who had trans-ferred to John Jay. “I really enjoyed being a peer counselor and felt a big connection to John Jay through that,” said Rodriguez. “I got to meet a lot of interesting people.”

PRESENT AT THE CREATION — Soon after defending her dissertation in May, MEGHAN SACKS will begin her “dream job” at Fairleigh Dickinson University, heading that institution’s new criminology department.

Sacks will graduate with a PhD in Criminal Jus-tice. Although Fairleigh Dickinson has a criminal justice department at its Teaneck, NJ, campus, Sacks will be creating a brand new criminol-ogy program at the university’s main campus in Madison, NJ. Her program will be part of an in-terdisciplinary department that combines history, political science and sociology.

Sacks’ dissertation looked at bail operations, plea bargaining and sentencing. She found that those who are denied bail tend to plead guilty just to get out of jail. “A hundred dollars might not seem a lot to some people,” she said, “but if you’re indigent, it could be the difference be-tween jail and your freedom.”

SEE YOU IN MIAMI — There was only one graduate school that DANIELLE SCIMECA applied to: the University of Miami. Happily, she was selected to enter its competitive joint PhD/MD program where she will study pharmacology beginning this July. “It was where I always want-ed to go,” said the 24-year-old Forensic Science major. “I didn’t give myself any other options.”

Scimeca would like to become a researcher, developing new drugs that could help those who suffer from neurological diseases, such as Par-kinson’s and Alzheimer’s. She is also intrigued by the ways that depressants like alcohol and heroin work on the brain. In fact, neurological toxicol-ogy was her favorite part of her John Jay curricu-lum. “The more I got into it,” said Scimeca, “the more I enjoyed toxicology over forensics.”

Scimeca’s involvement in the College’s PRISM program gave her the opportunity to present her research at professional conferences. “It was a great experience and it looked great on my ap-plication,” she said.

THE WORLD AWAITS — “Transnational normative entrepreneurialism” is a fancy way of saying how values and ideals such as human rights become commonplace. Helping that pro-cess along is the goal of 29-year-old PATRICK SCULLIN, who will be attending Georgetown University’s two-year program in Conflict Resolu-tion this year.

Scullin is graduating from John Jay with a CUNY Baccalaureate in International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution — an inter-disciplinary major he created.

During his academic career at John Jay, Scullin was deeply involved in John Jay’s United Nations Student Association and served as president of the National Model United Nations Association.

“There is a universal declaration of human rights that was written in 1948,” said Scullin. “It was a culmination of people’s philosophies and theologies. It was considered to be a moral minimum. Transnational normative entrepreneur-ialism is taking those ideas, or ideas like them, and finding creative ways to use media and other outlets to normalize them.”

A ROAD LESS TAKEN — Unlike many of her fellow Forensic Psychology majors, NEETHU SURESH has plans of working with children who have autism or other neurological disorders.

The 21-year-old has lived in Brooklyn since she was 7, when her parents moved to the United States from India. “I originally wanted to work with women who suffered from domestic violence — that’s why I was interested in criminal justice, plus the whole psychology aspect,” she said. What changed her mind was spending a year at boarding school in India, where she saw many women who had been subjected to vio-lence. “It may be something I’m not emotionally ready to deal with,” she said.

While Suresh is not ruling out someday working in that field, for now she hopes to be accepted into the CUNY Graduate Center’s doc-toral program in neuropsychology.

GOING BUGGY — LAUREN WEIDNER’s fascination with studying forensic entomology — insects in dead bodies — began during a sum-mer internship.

“I interned at the Suffolk County crime lab and did a study on maggots in relation to time of death,” said the 21-year-old Forensic Science major. “That’s what sparked my interest.”

Weidner will begin her PhD studies at Rutgers University in the field this fall.

CLASS ACTS Profiles of randomly selected members of the Class of 2010.

The most significant achievement of John Jay’s Ronald H. Brown Pre-Law Program is not in getting students accepted into law schools, but in having them graduate as attorneys, according to Professor Jodie Roure, the program’s director.

The program is a joint effort of St. John’s Uni-versity School of Law, the United Negro College Fund and several CUNY colleges, including John Jay, Medgar Evers and York. Its goal, said Roure, is nothing less than “to diversify the legal profes-sion, given that less than 10 percent of the judi-ciary and attorneys in the U.S. are minorities.”

Program participants last year applied to 211 law schools and gained admission to a broad array of top-tier schools, according to Roure.

The two-year program, which targets sophomores and juniors, takes place during both the summer and the academic year, with the summer portion taking place on the St. John’s Law School campus as well as at internship sites throughout the city. In 2009, the program for the third year in a row obtained a 100-percent acceptance rate to law school for those juniors who took the Law School Admissions Test. “These results are unprecedented,” said Roure, a member of the Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies.

At present, the program has nine students in law school, eight who are in master’s programs, another eight who are entering law school this year and one who will be matriculating in a doctoral program.

Fitz King, one of those who will be starting law school this year, has been accepted to the University of California-Davis School of Law. King has also been awarded a one-year scholarship of $54,000. “Without the Ronald H. Brown program I wouldn’t even have considered, or have had the direction to actively pursue getting into law school,” he said. “Besides attending John Jay, it was the biggest help I could get as far as my career is concerned.”

Brown Program Speeds GradsToward Law School & Beyond


April 21, 2010

Worth NotingApril 22 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM2010 Career FairFor John Jay students and alumni only.

Gymnasium, Haaren Hall

April 27 4:00 PMBook & Author SeriesMultilateral Counter-Terrorism:The Global Politics of Cooperationand ContestationPeter RomaniukJohn Jay College Department of Political Science


April 28 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM8th Annual Microscope DayPresented by the New York Microscopical Society and John Jay College

Room 613 BMW

April 30 9:00 AMPrisoner Reentry Institute Occasional Series onReentry ResearchThe People Prisons Make: Effects of Incarceration on Criminal PsychologyAmy LermanPrinceton Uniersity


Even the best varsity athletic program at John Jay would be hard-pressed to match the unbroken string of successes achieved by the College’s Model United Nations team, a group of 24 students who came home from the recent National Model United Nations (NMUN) Conference with four top awards. It was the sixth consecutive year that the team has won an award at the conference.

Each year the team represents a different U.N. member nation; this year’s assignment was the Republic of Sudan. At the weeklong conference, held in New York from March 28 to April 3, the John Jay team earned the Distinguished Delegation Award for its overall performance; the Outstanding Position Papers Award; the Outstanding Delegates in Committee Award for its performance in the Security Council, and the

Outstanding Delegates in Committee Award for its performance in the General Assembly plenary session.

“This is a terrific performance that confirms that we have become a major player in what is routinely described as the ‘Super Bowl’ of Model United Nations conferences,” exulted Professor George Andreopoulos of the political science department, who is director of the John Jay Center on International Human Rights and one of the team’s faculty advisors. He praised the students’ dedication, hard work and perseverance, and singled out the coaching provided by fellow faculty advisor Matthew Zommer, a lecturer in political science.

In addition to General Assembly and Security Council participation, the team served as delegates on several different U.N. committees.

Delegates deliberated, negotiated, drafted and adopted resolutions and reports on a variety of issues on the global agenda, in preparation for which they conducted extensive research on aspects of the national, regional and international policies of Sudan.

The NMUN Conference is attended by more than 3,000 students from 29 countries. The 2010 John Jay delegation consisted of Raja Althabani, Norhan Basuni, Ashley Benjamin, Mark Benjamin, Tomasz Buras, Andrea Canepa, Peter Cella, Trisha Gangadeen, Leasondra Garrido, Klotilda Kepi, Nadiya Kostyuk, Lenecia Lewis, Natalia Lysetska, Victoria Oyaniran, Jamal Pitt, Omar Rafiq, Jessica Rivera, Michael Rodriguez, David Sabatelle, Patrick Scullin, Jennifer Shim, Joseph Solario, Rachel Stanton, Gabriele Ursitti, Carolyn Vasquez and Cathryn Weber.

THE INNOCENCE PROJECTAttorneys Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld created the Innocence Project in 1992, dedicated to assisting wrongfully convicted prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. Staffed by full-time attorneys and students at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project provides direct pro bono representation or other critical assistance. To date, 252 people nationwide have been exonerated through DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. The Innocence Project’s work has shaped the course of case law, helped guide new state and federal legislation and led to an influential study by the National Academy of Sciences on forensic DNA testing.

THE FLORENCE IMMIGRANTAND REFUGEE RIGHTS PROJECTThe Florence Project is dedicated to serving the estimated 3,000 people detained at any given time in detention facilities in Florence and Eloy, AZ, and contract shelters in Phoenix. The project was created in 1989 in response to a federal judge’s plea for attorneys to fill the gap in representation left by the absence of a public defender system in immigration removal proceedings — a gap that threatened the statutory and constitutional rights of detained indigent immigrants. Today the Florence Project provides a full range of direct services, as well as serving as a national resource and training development center.

LEYMAH GBOWEEGbowee was a young mother of five who came of age during Liberia’s bloody civil war. Forced to flee on foot from her home, she was inspired to take a stand against the fighting and the violent regime of President Charles Taylor, and joined the Women in Peacebuilding Network. Her charismatic leadership and organizing skills led her to rally Christian and Muslim women in a series of prayer vigils and demonstrations that led to formal peace talks and the formation of a new government. Gbowee is currently the executive director of Women, Peace and Security Africa.

U.N. Team Brings Home Honors — in Quadruplicate!

The 2010John Jay

Justice AwardHonorees

The 2010 John Jay Justice Awards Ceremony held at the College on April 6 was a celebration of courage, and the individuals who were honored for global, national and community leadership in the pursuit of justice were favored with repeated standing ovations from a packed house in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

Before an enthusiastic audience of elected officials, public leaders and other dignitaries, and members of the college community, the Justice Awards were presented to Leymah Gbowee, founder of Liberian Mass Action for Peace; The Florence, AZ, Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, and the Innocence Project at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law.

“Tonight we celebrate the success of some very courageous individuals,” said President Jeremy Travis.

The awards ceremony included a roster of presenters as notable as the recipients themselves.

Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, co-founders and co-directors of the Innocence Project, received their National Leader for Justice Award from Mia Farrow, the award-winning actress and humanitarian, who noted how “a single voice can awaken the apathetic and stir the hopes of the wrongly convicted.”

Rossana Rosado, Publisher and CEO of El Diario/La Prensa, the nation’s oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper, presented the Community Leader for Justice Award, which was accepted by Kara Hartzler, legal director of the Florence initiative. Citing the immigrant roots of the United States, Rosado said that illegal aliens, by and large, are law-abiding people “who believe in the limitless possibilities that America represents.”

The Global Leader for Justice Award was presented by Academy Award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn, who cited Gbowee’s “profound faith and courage” in her struggle for peace “wherever she’s needed throughout the world.”

Burstyn also served as mistress of ceremonies. Joining her on the program were the vocal ensemble Sing for Hope and the violinist Joshua Bell, who presented musical tributes.

The John Jay Justice Awards affirm the commitment of John Jay College to strengthening society’s social fabric through justice and civic engagement. These awards, named after John Jay, a founding father and first Chief Justice of the United States, recognize individuals and organizations for their unparalleled dedication to the cause of justice.

The John Jay Justice Awards are made possible through a generous donation from Richard J. Tarlow, a retired advertising executive and member of the John Jay College Foundation

Board of Trustees.[For more information on the 2010 Justice

Award honorees, including video profiles, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu]

Standing Up Boldly for JusticeAnnual Awards Ceremony Salutes Courageous Leaders

A first-of-its-kind panel discussion on April 6 gave John Jay students and other members of the college community a chance for some candid, up-close-and-personal interaction with this year’s winners of the John Jay Justice Awards.

Honorees Peter J. Neufeld of the Innocence Project, Kara Hartzler of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and Leymah Gbowee fielded questions from moderator Rosemary Barberet of the sociology department and from the audience. They spoke with unstinting candor in describing how they or their organization approached the challenge of “standing up for justice.”

Reflecting on their successes, the honorees concurred that there is no set recipe for achieving social change. “I see something going wrong and

there’s something restless, an internal fire within me,” said Gbowee. “The recipe for me is, once something touches your heart, go after it.”

Having a passion for social change is important, echoed Neufeld, adding that there is a more practical societal aspect to the Innocence Project’s work. “If the wrong person is convicted and imprisoned, that means the real criminal is still on the loose, so now it’s a public safety issue as well as a moral one,” he said.

Neufeld went on to observe that while order can be imposed and rules enforced from the outside, “the only way you can achieve social change is from within.” Hartzler was quick to agree. “You have to be strategic and figure out how to get inside and do what you have to do,” she said.

Award Winners Tell How They Make Social Change Happen

President Travis with (from left) presenter/mistress of ceremonies Ellen Burstyn, Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project,

Leymah Gbowee, Kara Hartzler of the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project

and presenter Rossana Rosado. Below right, violin virtuoso Joshua Bell and presenter Mia Farrow.








PRESENTING…KWANDO M. KINSHASA (African American Studies) was an invited reviewer of the controversial musical The Scottsboro Boys on February 20 at the Vineyard Theatre in Manhattan. In conjunction with this review, on February 28 he was a panelist at a program at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square titled “The Scottsboro Boys: A Conversation about the Case and its Legacy.” On March 12, Kinshasa attended a conference on “Race, Labor & Citizenship in the Post-Emancipation South” at the College of Charleston, SC, where he was a commentator on a panel on “Taking the Measure of Grassroots Resistance to the Klan and White Paramilitaries.”

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) has been invited to do a virtual presentation of her “conversational pedagogy” teaching style at the International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, which will be held at the University of Barcelona in July.

ADINA SCHWARTZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) presented “Challenging Firearms and Toolmark ID,” at “Making Sense of Science III,” the third annual forensic science seminar cosponsored by the

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. The seminar took place in Las Vegas, NV, on March 26. She also did a presentation on forensic firearms evidence at “Life in the Balance: A Capital Defense Training Program,” sponsored by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the Tennessee District Public Defenders Conference, held in Nashville, TN, on March 7.

JANE KATZ (Health and Physical Education) once again will lead the warm-up stretch for 35,000 riders participating in Bike New York’s 5-Boro Bike Tour on May 2. In June, she will be a guest faculty presenter at Cornell Medical College’s “Update Your Medicine” program, at which she will speak to doctors and health care professionals about teaching exercise to their patients.

BETWEEN THE COVERSJAYNE MOONEY (Sociology) is a co-editor of Fifty Key Thinkers in Criminology (Routledge, 2010), a collection of 50 biographies of the most influential criminologists. The volume includes a profile of John Jay’s own Distinguished Professor JOCK YOUNG (Criminal Justice). For the book, Young, Mooney and five of their faculty colleagues — DAVID BROTHERTON (Sociology), JOSHUA FREILICH (Criminal Justice), MANGAI NATARAJAN (Criminal Justice), LILA KAZEMIAN (Sociology) and ANTHONY LEMELLE (Sociology) — also authored some of the biographies.

RANDY FRANCES KANDEL (Anthropology) and Anne Griffiths of the Edinburgh law faculty recently published “Custody and Coming of Age: Three American Cases,” as a chapter in Parenting After the Century of the Child: Travelling

Ideals, Institutional Negotiations and Individual Responses (Ashgate, 2010). The chapter reveals the ways that outmoded norms and magnified intimate anger become obstacles to personhood in legal forums focusing on children.

HOWARD PFLANZER (Communication and Theatre Arts) co-authored the article “The Didactic Contract, a Handshake and Compromise. A Teaching Action Research Project,” which was published in the December 2009 issue of Mathematics Teaching Journal.

JACQUES FOMERAND (Political Science) contributed an essay on the “Evolution of International Organization as Institutional Forms and Historical Processes Since 1945” to the International Studies Compendium Project edited by Robert A. Denemark and published by Blackwell and the International Studies Association.

PEER REVIEWMELINDA POWERS (English) won the Philadelphia Constantinidis Essay in Critical Theory Award for the best published article in 2009 on any aspect or period of Greek drama and theater. Her article “Unveiling Euripides” discussed the ways in which Bill T. Jones’s 2001 production of Euripides’ 405 BCE play Bacchae simultaneously challenged and reinforced orientalist tropes such as unveiling.

MARCIA ESPARZA (Criminal Justice) was recently awarded a highly competitive Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship, administered by the National Research Council, recognizes Esparza’s professional and scholarly competence and potential for career enhancement.

It was just within the past year that John Jay was invited to join the Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship Program, and already the College has produced its first winner of the prestigious fellowship: MaryBeth Apriceno, a second-year student in the John Jay Honors Program.

The three-year fellowship program offers paid summer internships, mentoring and enhanced educational opportunities to New York City undergraduates who demonstrate “exceptional promise, outstanding leadership skills and commitment to the common good,” according to a program spokesman.

Apriceno, a member of the Phi Eta Sigma honor society, is currently considering her choice of major, weighing options that include forensic psychology, criminology, sociology and/or English. She is an experienced community service volunteer and has served as a guide or representative for a variety of college events.

The fellowship program was established by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation in 1999. This year John Jay was one of only 12 New York City institutions to compete for 15 fellowship openings. “Only the most determined candidates complete the rigorous application process,” said Frank Wolf, director of the program..

Apriceno will have her pick of coveted job placements in nonprofit agencies, business entities and government service, as well as the opportunity for international assignments.

MaryBeth Apriceno

Blanche Wiesen Cook truly puts the “distinguished” in Distinguished Professor, and she recently added another accolade to her already long list of achievements, having been named as the winner of the 2010 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Publishing Triangle.

Cook, a Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies at John Jay and the CUNY

A four-way horse race for president in the 2010 Student Council elections produced one of the best voter turnouts in recent years, and propelled Joseph Onwu into office as the governing body’s new chief executive.

Onwu is a Dean’s List student majoring in Political Science, who hopes to attend law school and eventually pursue a career as a lawmaker in his native Nigeria.

Director of Student Activities Dennis Camacho attributed the voter turnout to a diverse, crowded field of quality candidates as well as the methods used by his office to drum up student interest. “For one thing, we video-streamed the debates,” he said, “so in addition to good in-person attendance, we had lots of people watching online.

“It’s clear to me that John Jay students are passionate about their politics,” he said.

In addition to Onwu, other winners included:Maxine Kerr, Vice President; Anastasia

Williams, Treasurer; Elizabeth Cyran, Secretary; Ajibade Longe and Clement James, Graduate Representatives; Chad Infante, Senior Representative; Courtney Taylor, Paulique Cardona, Brian Costa and Lewquay Williams, Junior Representatives; Winderline Petit-Frere, Mehak Kapoor and Michelle Tsang, Sophomore Representatives; Akuba Chinebuah, Davinder Paul Singh and Alex Griffith, Freshman Representatives.

John S. Cusick, Lewquay Williams, Stanley Okwudili, Ajibade Longe and Nayanny Bello won election as representatives to the student government’s Judicial Committee.

The new student government will be sworn in on June 1. The Office of Student Activities plans to conduct a transition workshop that will include such topics as role-awareness, team-building and setting agendas.

Student Council president-elect

Joseph Onwu

Sophomore Soars as Fellowship Winner

Student Election Is One for the Books

Honor of a Lifetime for Distinguished Professor

BY THE NUMBERSDuring the week of spring break, the Department of

Sciences hosted a three-day workshop in serial number

restoration that drew 15 firearms examiners — some of

them John Jay alumni or students — from the tristate area.

At right, instructor Gerard Petillo of the State Forensic

Lab in Connecticut shows a trainee how to use a magnetic

device to restore some of the obliterated serial numbers on

a rifle. Above, after careful polishing with a Dremel tool,

some of the numbers begin to reemerge. Peter Diaczuk of

the science department and the Center for Modern Forensic

Practice helped bring the professional training course

to John Jay, in part by working with an “insider” at the

federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

(ATF). Meghan Miller, who graduated with honors from

John Jay’s forensic science program in 2005, is now an ex-

plosives chemist with ATF. “She really went the extra mile

to make John Jay look good,” he said.

BY THE BOOKFaculty members “ooh” and “aah” as they admire each

other’s latest published works during a March 25 reception

for those who had new books in print in 2009. This year’s

salute to faculty publications, continuing a tradition begun

by President Travis, honored 20 faculty members who were

responsible for 23 new or revised works: Alisse Waterston

(Anthropology); Laurie Adams and Peter Manuel (Art and

Music); Marcia Esparza (Criminal Justice); Catherine Mulder

(Economics); Simon Baatz (History); Gloria Browne-Mar-

shall, Pat Collins, Lior Gideon, Maki Haberfeld. Joe King

and Charles Lieberman (Law, Police Science and Criminal

Justice Administration); Kathleen Collins, Jeffrey Kroessler

and Larry Sullivan (Library); Al Gotay (Health and Physical

Education); Amie Macdonald (Philosophy); Glenn Corbett

(Protection Management); Patricia Zapf (Psychology), and

Andrew Karmen (Sociology).

Graduate Center, has had a long career as a historian, activist and scholar. Her multi-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt has earned her nearly universal acclaim. Volume 1, 1884-1933, published in 1992, won the Lambda Literary Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award. The second volume, The Defining Years, 1933-1938, appeared in 1999, and the final book is forthcoming.

The editor of Crystal Eastman on Women & Revolution, Cook is also producer and host of her own long-running program on Radio Pacifica, “Women and the World in the 1990s.” She was a founder and co-chair of the Freedom of Information and Access Committee of the Organization of American Historians, which was actively committed to maintaining the integrity of the Freedom of Information Act.


March 31, 2010

Worth NotingApril 9 9:00 AM20th Annual Malcolm/King Breakfast (Rescheduled)Keynote Speaker:Woodie King Jr.Founder, New Federal TheatreHonoree:Robert JohnsonBronx District Attorney


April 12 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaThe Role of Folk Music as an Element in an Emerging Counter-CulturePeggy Seeger


April 16 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM2nd BiennialLiterature & Law ConferenceRegistration required. Online athttp://litandlawjjay.blogspot.com

Various locations, Haaren Hall

April 19 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaThe 1950s: Some Literary SnapshotsE.L. Doctorow

Gerald W. Lynch Theater, Haaren Hall

April 19 5:00 PM2010 Alumni ReunionWith a special salute to the graduating classes of 2005, 2000, 1995, 1990, 1985, 1980, 1975, 1970 and 1965.

Haaren Hall

Few questions regarding police practices in New York City are more sensitive than those surrounding stop, question and frisk tactics, with hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers being stopped by police each year.

In hopes of shedding light on the dimensions of the controversial issue and contributing to the public’s understanding of it, John Jay’s Center on Race, Crime and Justice has produced “Stop, Question & Frisk Policing Practices in New York City: A Primer.” The document was unveiled on March 9 in connection with a forum at the New York City Bar Association.

“The purpose of the primer is not to settle the debate about the costs and benefits of current practice,” said John Jay President Jeremy Travis. “On the contrary, the primer simply presents available data on stop, question and frisk practices in New York City; the interpretation of the data is left to others. Appropriately, the primer also provides a list of questions, recognizing both that the list is incomplete and that some advocates in the debate would assert that critical questions have already been answered.”

Under the lead authorship of Professor Delores Jones-Brown, Director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice, the primer documents that over the seven-year period from 2003 to 2009, the number of stops documented by New York City police officers each year has more than tripled, to more than 575,000 in 2009. Even that figure is likely to represent only about 70 percent of the actual number, since not all stops are documented.

Five of the city’s 76 police precincts had the greatest number of stops cumulatively from 2003 to 2008: the 23rd (Upper East Side/East Harlem), 73rd (Ocean Hill-Brownsville), 75th (East New York), 79th (Bedford-Stuyvesant) and 103rd (Jamaica). Of the more than 540,000 stops in 2008 alone, just over 54 percent involved the officer frisking the suspect. “A very small percentage (1.24 percent) of total stops resulted in the discovery of a weapon of any kind (gun,

knife or other type of weapon),” the primer reported.

A slightly higher percentage (1.70 percent) led to the discovery of some other kind of contraband, including illegal drugs, and 6 percent of stops resulted in an arrest.

Blacks and Hispanics made up the overwhelming majority of persons stopped for each year between 2003 and 2009. In 2009 alone, the primer points out that blacks and Hispanics combined were stopped nine times more than whites. Blacks and Hispanics were also more likely to be subjected to frisks and police use of force following a stop.

The primer notes that while available data on police stops in New York City describe a great deal about their volume, nature and outcomes, the statistics raise as many questions as they answer. The primer suggests that future research should examine such questions as:

¶ How does being stopped by a police officer affect one’s perceptions of law enforcement,

especially among youth?¶ What are the best practices in conducting

stops?¶ What causal relationship, if any, exists

between public safety and the police use of stop, question and frisk tactics?

¶ How do current stop-and-frisk practices compare with the NYPD’s stated prohibition against racial profiling?

Participants in the accompanying panel discussion included former Miami, FL, Police Chief John Timoney; Professor Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University; Heather MacDonald, the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute; and Professor Tracey Meares, Deputy Dean of the Yale Law School.

Funding for the publication of the stop and frisk primer was provided by the Open Society Institute. The Center for Constitutional Rights provided some of the data and analysis used in the document, which is available online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/primer.

Fabiana Araujo, a May 2009 graduate of John Jay’s baccalau-reate program in International Criminal Justice, has won a pres-tigious internship at the Inter-national Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Araujo will be working in the Victims and Witness Unit of the court’s Office of the Public Coun-sel for Victims, where she will develop policy papers, conduct research and analyses of political, legal and social issues as well as provide support, protective and logistical services to victims and witnesses who appear before the court.

“Since coming to John Jay in 2004, Fabiana has pursued a sustained interest in law and international relations,” said sociology Professor Rosemary Barberet, interim director of the new

John Jay students — along with the entire online world — now have access to a wide variety of multimedia content — including course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, performances and much more — through the popular iTunes University website.

iTunes U offers educational content from hundreds of colleges and universities throughout

John Jay Center Turns Up the Heat on a Hot-Button Issue, Stop & Frisk Practices

Professor Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University addresses a packed house at New York City Bar Association headquarters,

during a forum that accompanied the release of a primer on the stop, question and frisk practices of the New York City

Police Department. The primer was prepared by John Jay’s Center on Race, Crime and Justice.

Don’t Touch That Dial: John Jay Is Now on iTunes U

master’s degree program in International Crime and Justice. “Her new duties will combine her training in criminal justice, her experience as a paralegal in the immigration law firm of Wildes & Weinberg, P.C. and her fluency in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

“She is very passionate about international criminal justice,” Barberet said of Araujo, who left to begin her internship at the end of March.

Araujo was born and raised in Brazil and relocated to the

United States along with her family in 2000. She plans to enter law school following her internship at the world court.

The internship is a first for a John Jay graduate, Barberet said.

Fabiana Araujo

Alumna Takes On the WorldPrized Internship Awaits at Hague Tribunal

the United States. Once a user has installed free iTunes software on a personal computer, videos and audios can be downloaded to an iPod, iPhone or other MP3 player.

John Jay’s iTunes site has both public and private sections. The public portion, which debuted last week, includes features such as college highlights, presentations such as the

Patrick V. Murphy lecture series, Lloyd Sealy lecture series and the Book & Author panel discussions, conferences and symposia, and the CUNY-TV program “Criminal Justice Matters.”

Sports highlights, college-sponsored performances, campus tours and interviews with college faculty, staff, students and alumni are also part of iTunes U.

The private portion of John Jay’s iTunes presence, which was rolled out earlier, has a course-specific section, with all courses offered at the College automatically receiving an iTunes site. Only students enrolled in a given course can access its iTunes site, and faculty members are responsible for building and customizing the site. The private section can be accessed via Blackboard or directly without first going through Blackboard, and requires the same authentication procedures for security purposes.

Check the college website, www.jjay.cuny.edu, for information and updates on iTunes University @ John Jay.

Standing Up for Justice:Three Different Approaches

A panel discussion in conjunction withthe 2010 Justice Awards presentation

Featuring Leymah Gbowee (Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace), Peter Neufeld(The Innocence Project), Kara Hartzler (Florence, AZ, Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project)

Tuesday, April 6, 3:30 PMRoom 630, Haaren Hall








ON BOARDJEFFREY BUTTS has been named Director of the Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center. Butts holds a PhD in sociology and social work from the University of Michigan. He has been director of the Program on Youth Justice at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, and senior research associate at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, among other career highlights.

PRESENTINGJODIE G. ROURE (Latin American and Latina/o Studies) was the featured speaker on April 1 at the Color of Law Roundtable held at Western New England College School of Law. Roure is a 1997 alumna of the law school.

M. VICTORIA PÉREZ-RIOS (Political Science) attended the annual convention of the International Studies Association, held in New Orleans, LA, from February 17 – 20, where she

presented a paper on “War and Truth and/or Historical Memory,” chaired a panel on “Are Democracy and Human Rights Compatible?” and was the discussant on a panel exploring “Conceptualizing and Realizing Democracy.” At the annual conference of the Southern Political Science Association, held in Atlanta, GA, in January, Pérez-Rios presented a paper on “Accountability After 9-11: International and Domestic Implications of the War on Terror.”

KATHLEEN COLLINS (Library) presented her paper, “Murrow and Friendly’s ‘Small World’: The Impossible Ideal of the World’s Biggest Classroom” on March 13 at a joint meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, History Division, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

MARIE UMEH (English) presented a paper on “(Re)Defining Masculinity: Male Involvement in Eradicating Violence Against Women and Promoting Human Rights for Women” at the annual conference of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held in New York on March 7.

MICHAEL PFEIFER (History) delivered the 2010 Rondel Davidson History Lecture at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, TX, on February 25. Pfeifer’s lecture was on “Texas, the Southwest, and the Origins of Lynching in the United States.”

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) spoke to men at the Forestdale Fathering Initiative in Queens on March 2. The initiative reconnects fathers with their children, helping them to understand the roles and responsibilities of fatherhood. All the clients were mandated by a judge to a 12-week job training and parenting course. Kimora’s presentation was titled “Conflict Resolution in the Face of Domestic Abuse.”

BETWEEN THE COVERSMICHAEL PFEIFER (History) has had an article accepted for publication in The Journal of American History. “The Northern U.S. and the Genesis of Racial Lynching: The Lynching of African-Americans in the Era of the Civil War” will appear in the journal’s December 2010 issue.

PAUL BRENNER (Audio Visual Services) worked as a research assistant on the forthcoming book Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero.

ABBY STEIN (Anthropology/Interdisciplinary Studies) has published a chapter, “Shooting in the Spaces: Violent Crime as Dissociated Enactment” in the book Knowing, Not Knowing, and Sort of Knowing: Psychoanalysis and the Experience of Uncertainty (Karnac, 2010).

JEREMY TRAVIS (President), ANNA CRAYTON and DEBBIE MUKAMAL (Prisoner Reentry Institute) have coauthored an article, “A New

Era in Inmate Reentry,” that was published in the December 2009 issue of Corrections Today.

PEER REVIEWANGELINE BUTLER (African American Studies) received a Freedom Flame award on March 6 From the Bridge Crossing Jubilee — Voting Rights Museum in Selma, AL. While in Selma to receive the award, Butler spoke about her acclaimed 1987 commemorative play Voices of a Sit-In.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) has been appointed to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Education Curriculum Development Committee.

MIRIAM EHRENBERG (Psychology) was recently featured in GO magazine as one of its “Women at the Helm,” in recognition of her work as Executive Director of the Institute for Human Identity, a nonprofit psychotherapy and training center in Manhattan.

JANE KATZ (Health and Physical Education) conducted her annual aquatic clinic in March at the John Jay pool for New York University physical therapy students. She introduced over 30 students to the benefits of water exercise for future therapists. Katz also competed in the recent United States Masters Swimming one-hour swim championship, completing 3,600 yards. She placed second in the nation in both individual and relay categories.

The annual McCabe Fellowship Breakfast played to a packed house at John Jay on March 15, in a pre-St. Patrick’s Day celebration of the academic exchange program between An Garda Siochána, the Irish national police, and John Jay.

The Fellowship Program was created in mem-ory of Irish police detective Jerry McCabe, who was killed in the line of duty during an attempted robbery in June 1996. Each year, two or more members of An Garda Siochána come to John Jay for an intensive course of study toward a graduate degree.

As she has in the past, Anne McCabe, the detective’s widow, attended the breakfast to bring words of greeting and encouragement. “I prefer to look forward to the future rather than dwell in the past,” she said. “I’m proud to num-ber this Fellowship as one of the good things to come out of the tragedy of Jerry’s death.”

Noting the evolution of the peace process that has all but ended decades of political violence in Ireland and Northern Ireland, McCabe told the audience that “peace and justice have been the calling of so many people in Ireland” it would be lamentable if the final steps were not taken toward that goal.

McCabe’s view was echoed by the Hon. Barry Andrews, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs for the Republic of Ireland. “It isn’t the work of politicians but the commitment of communities,”

“I would like to ask my school to come and help my country.”

With these words, John Jay alumnus Delarquy Fleuriot reminded attendees at a March 16 memorial for victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti that much is needed in the aftermath of the disaster that claimed more than 200,000 lives.

The tone for the somber ceremony was set by a video of scenes from the devastation, which President Jeremy Travis noted showed “damaged buildings and broken bodies, but also, more importantly, the strength and courage of the Haitian people.”

Andy Rocher, president of the Haitian Students Association, said that, like many fellow students, he had suffered loss in the earthquake, with two aunts having perished. Jean Louis, a member of the Registrar’s Office who was born in Haiti and came to the United States 14 years ago, importuned the audience to not think of Haiti as “a one-time media-generated catastrophe.”

Fleuriot, a 1997 graduate, closed the proceedings with his impassioned plea for help. “Through the darkness of this tragedy, we see a light, and each day it’s getting brighter,” he said. “We are a great nation, a strong nation, and one day we will rise up again.”

CAMPUS SCENES

Everyone’s Irish for a Day at McCabe Breakfast College Pauses toRemember Victimsof Haiti Earthquake

The Law in their Future?

New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. takes time to meet and chat

with John Jay students during the annual Law Day @ John Jay observance on

March 13. Vance would deliver the Samuel and Anna Jacobs Foundation Lecture

on Law and the Legal Profession. Sponsored by the Pre-Law Institute, Law Day

included presentations on preparing for and succeeding in law school, mastering

the Law School Admissions Test, career paths in the law, and more.

“Angels” over John Jay

Playwright Tony Kushner (right), award-winning author of Angels Over America,

took to the stage at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on March 8 for a freewheel-

ing conversation with Visiting Professor Michael Meeropol. The session was

part of the semester-long lecture series “Justice and Injustice in 1950s America”

presented by Meeropol and the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, with funding

support from the New York Council for the Humanities.

he said, “that makes peace and reconciliation possible.”

Other speakers included Nacie Rice, Deputy Commissioner of An Garda Siochána, and the Hon. Margaret Ritchie, Minister of the Depart-

ment of Social Change in Northern Ireland and head of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

This year’s McCabe Fellows are Gardaí Justin Kelly and Caroline Copeland, both of whom are pursuing master’s degrees in criminal justice.

Irish eyes are smiling as Anne McCabe (right) enjoys a few moments with this year’s McCabe Fellows, Justin Kelly and

Caroline Copeland.


March 10, 2010

Worth NotingMarch 13 9:00 AM – 4:00 PMLaw Day @ John JayKeynote Speaker:Cyrus R. Vance Jr.New York District Attorney

Registration Required. Online atwww.jjay.cuny.edu/centersinstitutes/prelaw/prelaw.asp

Various locations, Haaren Hall

March 15 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaRevolt Against the Cult of DomesticityJoanne Meyerowitz


March 18 4:00 PMThe Role of Public Intellectuals andPublic Institutions inTimes of Global CrisisDiscussion with Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College, andBill Kelly, President, CUNYGraduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue, Room C204/205,New York

March 22 6:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaA Case Study of Resistance:The Rosenberg-Sobell Case Film,“Heirs to an Execution”Ivy Meeropol


March 26 9:00 AMOccasional Serieson Reentry Research(Re)Starting and Stopping: Breaks between Criminal Activity vs.Permanent Cessation from CrimeShawn BushwayUniversity at Albany


March 27 & 28 Times varyThe Legacy of ShoahFilm Festival and ConcertDocumentary films, lectures and music that share the personal experiences of Holocaust survivors.For tickets, go to www.ticketcentral.com


In 2014, John Jay students, along with fac-ulty, staff and alumni, can expect to be part of something very special, and not merely the cel-ebrations that will mark the College’s 50th anni-versary. That year, the college community will see the fruition of a five-year master plan, “John Jay @ 50,” that will continue the dramatic evolution of John Jay while keeping faith with its mission of “educating for justice.”

The new master plan is currently taking shape under the guidance of a Master Plan Advisory Council (MPAC) created by President Jeremy Travis. With assistance provided by the consult-ing firm of Keeling & Associates, the 32-member advisory panel made up of students, faculty, staff, alumni, John Jay Foundation board members and government partners will be meeting monthly as part of a process the President said will be inclu-sive, transparent and comprehensive.

Travis previewed the master plan during his State of the College address on October 21, 2009, in which he described five domains of excellence that will define “John Jay @ 50.” The domains — student success, teaching, scholar-ship, strategic partnerships and institutional effectiveness — will serve as guideposts for master-planning discussions, Travis suggested.

“I envision a master plan that reflects our best thinking, our high hopes and our commitment to excellence,” the President said. “It will paint a picture of where we want to be and how we will get there, and I encourage every member of

the John Jay community to play an active role in defining this roadmap for our future.”

A major step in the creation of the master plan came with the release of a vision statement that serves as a critical underpinning for “John Jay @ 50.” Drafted under the leadership of Provost Jane Bowers, the statement asserts: “As we look toward our 50th birthday, we honor the college we are, as we design the college we wish to become. Our transformation is not finished; we commit to continuing to pursue innovation and to following a program of continuous self-assess-ment and improvement in order to best achieve our goals and best prepare our institution to

meet the challenges of the coming years.”According to the vision statement, the focus

of John Jay education must shift from “transmit-ting knowledge to producing learning, from delivering instruction to empowering students to become co-producers of knowledge.” To achieve this, the statement says, every member of the college community must be dedicated to the goal of student learning. “We will all play a role in student learning and success — and the more successful our graduates, the greater our impact on the world,” the statement says.

Travis has formed master plan working groups for each of the five domains, with those groups working with Keeling & Associates to shape information derived from surveys, focus groups and town hall-style meetings into “very high-level goals” that will be presented to MPAC. The goal is to have a working draft of “John Jay @ 50” by May, and a final version in place by the beginning of the 2010 – 2011 academic year. Implementa-tion of the master plan’s goals would be achieved by the end of the 2014 – 2015 academic year.

Creation of the master plan coincides with the launch of the latest Middle States reaccreditation process for the College, which will be completed by 2013. These initiatives, along with a plan to raise retention and graduation rates, are inter-twined in key respects, college officials noted.

(For more information about “John Jay @ 50,” and to participate in information-gathering sur-veys, go to www.jjay.cuny.edu/masterplan.)

A half-dozen John Jay Honors Program students spent February 23 – 27 in sunny San Diego, CA, where they presented their honors thesis research at the annual conference of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS).

The academic achievers were part of a 44-member delegation from John Jay, including 25 faculty members.

“I am thrilled that such a large number of John Jay faculty and students are participating in the 2010 meeting of the ACJS,” said Dean for Research James Levine. “This is yet another manifestation of our ever-expanding research agendas and our prominence in the world of criminal justice scholarship.”

Honors students Sara A. Moharrem, Neethu Suresh, Michelle Hershkowitz, Lauren M. Weidner, Megan Maiello and Timothy J. Luke were sponsored for the trip to the ACJS meeting. Their presentations focused on topics that included Rwandan genocide, criminological constructs of religiosity, biases against male sexual-assault victims, post-mortem homicide analysis, characteristics of bank robbers and bank robbery, and terrorism and interrogation

techniques. Maiello also chaired the panel on “Offender Typologies, Perspectives and Patterns of Violence.”

“They have been working on their thesis research with Distinguished Professor Todd Clear since the end of the spring 2009 semester and have feverishly prepared their presentations over the last two months,” said Mady Bribiesca, the Honors Program Coordinator. “These remarkable students were among only a small number of undergraduates to present their work alongside renowned criminal justice scholars and practitioners.”

At the conference, Professor Zelma Henriques of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration was honored as the winner of the 2010 ACJS Outstanding Mentor Award. Henriques was cited for making “substantial contributions to the academic/professional growth and development of students and other colleagues in the field of criminal justice,” according to the ACJS.

In addition to the Honors students, at least 10 other undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students from John Jay took part in the

John Jay to Help DR Upgrade Police Practices

Megan Maiello, part of John Jay’s delegation of honors

students at the recent ACJS conference in San Diego.

conference as presenters or discussants.The John Jay delegation included faculty

and staff representatives from the Departments of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration; Public Management; Criminal Justice; Psychology; Sociology, and Mathematics and Computer Science, as well as the Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center.

[For more on the recent achievements of top John Jay students, turn to the back page.]

College Sets Sights on Upcoming Milestone, Drafting New “John Jay @ 50” Master Plan

John Jay Honors Students Take Center Stageat High-Profile Criminal Justice Conference

President Jeremy Travis (center) met in his office on February 9 with officials of the Dominican Republic National Police, prior to a press briefing at which they unveiled an agreement that will have the College assist in a variety of police reforms for the Caribbean nation. John Jay will help with leadership development and interagency coordination as well as the drafting of a strategic vision plan for the future of the National Police. In addition, said Professor Lawrence Kobilinsky, Chair of the Department of Sciences, faculty will study crime scene response and how evidence is processed, particularly in terms of interaction between police, prosecutors, pathologists and the Attorney General’s office. The meeting included Major General Rafael Guillermo Guzman Fermin, Chief of Police for the Dominican Republic; Eddy Reyes, General Rector of the Institute of Higher Learning of Police, and General Juan Manuel Frutuoso Heredia, Director of Police Intelligence.

HELP REBUILD HAITI!To find out what you can do as

a member of the John Jaycommunity in response to the

devastating earthquake in Haiti, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu/

rebuildhaiti.

Now more than ever....








PRESENTING…ADINA SCHWARTZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was a panelist in a plenary session on “Introduction and Overview of National Academy of Sciences Report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the U.S.: A Path Forward” as part of a February 11 seminar on the NAS report on forensic evidence, co-sponsored in Boston by the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Flaschner Judicial Institute, and the Suffolk University Law School Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Macaronis Institute for Trial and Appellate Advocacy. Schwartz also addressed a

breakout session for members of the bar.

DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was the keynote speaker, at the Atlantic Women In Law Enforcement conference, held in Stellerton, Nova Scotia, on October 21.

HOWARD PFLANZER (Communication and Theatre Arts) had a staged reading of his play Poetry Class with Serial Killer at the Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan on February 24. The presentation was part of the theatre’s 26th Annual Celebration of the Spoken Word.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was the guest speaker during the January 15 presentation of CrimCast, a monthly podcast that highlights criminal justice issues in the news. She spoke about the importance of hospice care for offenders in prison. STACI STROBL (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was one of the podcast interviewers. On February 8, Kimora presented a paper at the Southern Rural

Sociological Association annual conference in Orlando, FL. Her paper, “The Relevance of the ‘N’ Word in Rural American Society,” was part of a session on “Emancipatory Pedagogy: Structural and Cultural.”

BETWEEN THE COVERSEDWARD SNAJDR (Anthropology) recently published “Two Landscapes: Comparing Ecology Movements in Slovakia and Hungary” in the journal Hungarian Studies. The article examines the political, cultural and social differences between Hungarian and Slovak environmental activism during and after the Communist period.

JOSHUA C. WILSON (Political Science) had his most recent article, “It Takes All Kinds: Observations From an Event-Centered Approach to Cause Lawyering,” published in Studies in Law, Politics, & Society.

KLAUS VON LAMPE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) had a paper on cigarette counterfeiting in China, co-authored with Anqi Shen and Georgios Antonopoulos

John Jay students will have four new oppor-tunities to earn academic credit overseas this summer, with plans for faculty-led study-abroad programs in Greece and the Caribbean.

The new offerings and their faculty are:¶ “Caribbean Cultural Criminology,” taught

by Professors Luis Barrios and Jodie Roure (Latin American and Latino/a Studies), meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic;

¶ “Caribbean Literature and Theater,” taught by Professors PJ Gibson (English) and Dara Byrne (Communication and Theatre Arts), meet-ing in St. Georges, Grenada;

¶ “Greek Art and Culture,” taught by Profes-sor Thalia Vrachopoulos (Art and Music), meeting in Athens, Greece;

¶ “Popular Music of the Caribbean,” taught by Professor Peter Manuel (Art and Music), meet-ing in San St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

Ken Lewandoski, the Director of Interna-tional Studies and Programs, noted that the study-abroad programs provide John Jay College academic credits, and qualify under the Study/Travel Opportunities for CUNY Students (STOCS) program, through which participating students can receive financial aid. More information on

STOCS is available from the Office of Interna-tional Studies and Programs.

“These programs are academically rigorous and designed to enhance a student’s chosen course of study,” Lewandoski said. The four-week programs include lectures and discussions, field trips and presentations by local persons of interest. Housing arrangements vary from one program to the next, including apartments, dor-mitories or living with indigenous families.

All students will be required to attend a pre-departure orientation, and to share their experi-ences with the broader John Jay College commu-nity upon their return, Lewandoski said.

During the recent winter mini-semester, Professors Robert Garot and Susan Opotow of the Department of Sociology led a study-abroad session based in Pistoia, Italy, “History, Memory and Immigration in Contemporary Tuscany.” Students had the opportunity to earn up to six undergraduate credits or three graduate credits during the three-week program.

The deadline for applying for the sum-mer 2010 study-abroad program is April 1. For more information, contact Lewandoski at 212.484.1339, email [email protected].

While John Jay honors students were shin-ing in sunny San Diego (see front page), Vickie Mishoulam was basking in her own recent success, having become the College’s latest CUNY champion by winning the highly competi-tive CUNY/CLASP Speech Contest.

Coached by her Speech 113 instructor Pat Iacobazzo of the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts, Mishoulam won the title on February 8 at New York City College of Technol-ogy with a speech on “Stopping Procrastina-tion.” Each CUNY school that participates in the competition is allowed only one contestant. Mishoulam gained her slot by winning the John Jay Speech Contest last semester against what was described as very tough competition.

Mishoulam’s victory earned her a medal and cash prize. In addition, a travelling trophy en-graved with her name and that of John Jay will be on display in the Department of Communica-tion and Theatre Arts for the coming year.

A piazza in Pistoia, Italy, site of the winter session study-abroad program led by sociology professors Robert Garot and

Susan Opotow.

Four Sites Tapped for Summer Study-Abroad Programs

of Teesside University in England, accepted for publication in the British Journal of Criminology.

DOROTHY MOSES SCHULZ (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) has published her article “Women Special Agents in Charge: The First Generation” in Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.

JACQUES FOMERAND (Political Science) is the author of The A to Z of the United Nations, a reference work on the organization published by The Scarecrow Press.

PEER REVIEWKLAUS VON LAMPE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was recently re-elected for a two-year term as executive director of the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime. He also served as a facilitator at a work group meeting on international organized crime convened by the National Institute of Justice in Washington, DC, on January 28 – 29.

Karla Cruz, an English major at John Jay, is spending a very busy spring semester as an intern at the Albany, NY, newspaper The Legislative Gazette. The Gazette covers the New York State political arena, and its interns serve as staff reporters, putting in 35 hours of fieldwork per week in addition to academic coursework in political science and journalism.

Since joining the newspaper in mid-January, Cruz has produced more than a dozen articles on a variety of topics, including the impact of SUNY/CUNY budget cuts and a proposed empowerment plan that would allow campuses to set their own tuition rates.

Internships at the Gazette for fall, spring and summer semesters are open to college juniors and seniors with a demonstrated record of academic achievement. Interns can earn up to 15 credits for fall and spring semesters, or 9 for the summer session, in addition to receiving a financial stipend.

Students Excel in Speech, JournalismCUNY Speech Contest Won by John Jay Student

English Major Internsat Capital Newspaper

Remembering the ’50sEditor and publisher Victor Navasky

(left) enjoys a relaxing moment with

Visiting Professor Michael Meeropol and

Distinguished Professor Gerald Markowitz

prior to Navasky’s February 22 lecture on

“Lessons of McCarthyism.” The talk was

part of the semester-long lecture series

“Justice and Injustice in 1950s America,”

conceived and coordinated by Meeropol

and featuring an all-star lineup of scholars

and artists.

CAMPUS SCENES

Getting tothe TruthCriminologist and award-winning

documentary film producer Roger

Graef (right) talks about his latest

work, The Truth about Crime,”

following a special screening of

the film on February 23. Joining

Graef on the panel were (from left)

Judge Alex Calabrese of the Red

Hook Community Justice Center and

Professor Peter Moskos of the De-

partment of Law, Police Science and

Criminal Justice Administration.

A Ray ofSunshine

Community Spirit

In the midst of a frigid Northeast

winter, Orlando, FL, Police Chief Val

Demings brought greetings from

the Sunshine State as the featured

speaker at the annual Lloyd Sealy

Lecture on February 8. A full house

was on hand to hear Demings,

who became the first black female

to head the Orlando department

when she was named chief in 2007.

John Jay students who are

members of the Red Hook Public

Safety Corps were recognized

February 18 at a ceremony to

honor the collaboration between

the Center for Court Innovation

and John Jay’s Office of Commu-

nity Outreach and Service Learn-

ing, under the direction of Declan

Walsh (rear, second from right).


February 17, 2010

Worth NotingFebruary 22 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaLessons of McCarthyismVictor Navasky


February 23 7:00 PMJohn Jay’s Got Talent!2nd Annual Entertainment Showcasefor John Jay Students, Faculty and Staff


February 26 9:00 AM20th AnnualMalcolm/King BreakfastKeynote Speaker:Woodie King Jr.Founder, New Federal TheatreHonoree:Robert JohnsonBonx District AttorneyRSVP to 212.237.8764


March 1 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaFrom the Korean War to Vietnam — American Foreign Policy in the 1950sMarilyn Young


March 2 3:30 PMSpring 2010Faculty & Staff MeetingGerald W. Lynch Theater, Haaren Hall

March 8 7:00 PMJustice and Injusticein 1950s AmericaA Conversation with Tony Kushner


Some of the most distinguished artists and historians working in America today will be making their way to John Jay over the course of the spring semester, to be part of a groundbreaking lecture series aimed at shedding new light on America in the 1950s.

The series, “Justice and Injustice in 1950s America,” is the brainchild of Visiting Professor of Economics Michael Meeropol, who said he first proposed the idea to Provost Jane Bowers shortly after joining the faculty in the fall of 2009. The lectures are designed as one component of an Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP) course taught by Meeropol, along with readings, interactive Blackboard sessions and 90-minute discussions before the lectures.

Meeropol himself opened the lecture series on February 1 with a talk on “The 1950s Nobody Knows,” and Columbia University historian Eric Foner followed on February 8 with a discussion of “The Changing Concept of Freedom in the United States, 1945 – 1960. Upcoming presentations will feature Distinguished Professor of History Blanche Wiesen Cook; award-winning editor and publisher Victor Navasky; playwright Tony Kushner; novelist E.L. Doctorow; linguist/philosopher/political activist Noam Chomsky;

folksinger Peggy Seeger; documentary filmmaker Ivy Meeropol, and historians David Levering Lewis, Joanne Meyerowitz and Marilyn Young.

Funding for the series is being provided by the New York Council on the Humanities.

Why the extensive focus on the 1950s? Meeropol is blunt in his explanation. “We all think of the 1960s as a time of ferment and change, and the ’50s, by contrast, as a time of conformity, repression and somnolence. That’s garbage!” The ’50s, Meeropol said, saw wars hot and cold, Communist expansionism abroad and anti-Communist witch hunts at home, and the beginnings of the civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights movements.

A hard-hitting team of investigative reporters from the Belleville (IL) News-Democrat won one of the 2010 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Awards, for a series of articles that exposed conditions and practices at the Tamms Correctional Center, Illinois’s only state-run supermax prison.

Beth Hunsdorfer and George Pawlaczyk reported in their series “Trapped in Tamms” that the conditions were comparable to those

for foreign terror suspects held in Guantanamo, Cuba. Their exposé prompted the Illinois Depart-ment of Corrections to announce a program of improvements in the treatment of inmates.

The award for a single article was presented to Jordan Smith of the Austin (TX) Chronicle, for her article “Imaginary Fiends: Believing the Chil-dren,” which reexamined the 1992 conviction of Fran and Danny Keller for multiple counts of child sex abuse at their Austin day care center.

The awards were presented by John Jay’s Cen-ter on Media, Crime and Justice, in conjunction with the Center’s fifth annual Harry Frank Gug-genheim Symposium, “Criminal Justice Reform: What’s Working? What’s Not? What Don’t We Know?” on February 1 – 2.

“Our annual awards represent the only formal national recognition of superior criminal justice reporting,” said President Jeremy Travis. “This year’s winners join our honor roll of journalists whose work has had a dramatic impact on their

Professor Suzanne Oboler of John Jay’s Department of Latin American and Latina/o Studies has been chosen as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies for 2010. She will use the appointment to study the changing meaning of race and blackness in Brazil, in light of the recent implementation of affirmative action in Brazilian higher education.

Awards in the Fulbright Dis-tinguished Chairs Program are reserved for eminent scholars with a significant publication and teaching record.

“Professor Oboler’s selection as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair brings great honor to John Jay, and provides important recognition of her scholarly contributions,” said President Jeremy Travis. “This recognition will allow her to advance an important area of research and return to campus with new ideas to share with students and faculty.”

Oboler will spend four months at the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil,

Lecture Series Takes a Long, Hard Look at a Turbulent Decade (and It’s Not the ’60s) Top Artists, Scholars Assess “Justice & Injustice in 1950s America”

where she will lecture on issues of race, immigration, citizenship and belonging among Latino/as in the United States. She will also continue her research on the flow of racial ideas in the hemisphere, by focusing on the changing perceptions and meanings of race and racial issues in public life and discourses in Brazil.

An important component of her research will be the attitudes and views among Brazilians who have resided for some time in the United States, and how they inte-

grate their U.S. experiences and reflections, in-cluding their relations with African American and U.S. Latino/a populations.

Oboler came to John Jay in 2007 and brought with her the international journal, Latino Studies, of which she is the founding editor. She is also the co-editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia on Latinos and Latinas in the United States and the author of Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of Representation.

“Although the 1960s are better remembered as a time of protest and rebellion,” he said, “the 1950s brought their own share of new ideas, bold actions and resistance to conformity and conservatism — in short, an effort to redefine what justice meant in post-war America.”

Meeropol has a unique personal connection to the decade. He was a boy of only 7 when his parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were arrested in 1950 on charges of being Soviet spies. They were convicted and executed three years later, in a high-profile case that

continued to resonate with controversy for years to come.

Nothing like this lecture series has been done before, said Meeropol, who drew on personal and professional connections to enlist Doctorow and Kushner, among “the heavy hitters in the lineup.”

The key to the series’ success, he noted, “will be whether we get people from the community, from CUNY, from the John Jay campus, to come out and hear this.”

[The complete schedule for the series “Justice and Injustice in 1950s America” can be found online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/1950s.]

Three Crusading Journalists Get Results& Win Peer Acclaim at Crime Symposium

Suzanne Oboler

Latino/a Scholar to Head to Brazil After Winning Fulbright Honor

communities and the criminal justice system.”The symposium is the only national gathering

that brings together journalists, legislators, schol-ars and practitioners for discussions on the state of the U.S. criminal justice system. Panel topics at this year’s symposium included the impact of the financial crisis on corrections; new directions for juvenile justice, the future of problem-solving courts; recognizing and avoiding racial bias in crime coverage and justice news in a digital age.

Honorable mention in the series category was awarded to David Kaplan and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (Center for Public Integrity) for their report, “Tobacco Underground: The Booming Global Trade in Smuggled Cigarettes,” which involved a team of 22 journalists working in 14 countries. Sean Gardiner of the quarterly journal City Limits In-vestigates was awarded honorable mention in the single-story category for “Buy and Bust: New York City’s War on Drugs at 40.”

President Travis joins crime-reporting honorees at the fifth annual Guggenheim Symposium’s awards luncheon. From left:

Travis; David Kaplan (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists); keynote speaker Jeffrey Toobin; Jordan Smith

(Austin Chronicle); Stephen Handelman, director of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice, and George Pawlaczyk and Beth

Hunsdorfer (Belleville News-Democrat).








ON BOARDCRAIG DAVIDSON (Athletics) has been named head coach of the men’s tennis team. Davidson played for the University of Montana, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 2005. He has worked as a tennis pro in Montana and his native Connecticut, as well as with the Bumble Bee Tennis program and the Gotham Tennis Academy in New York City. “I am looking forward to building on last season’s success and helping the program get to the next level,” he said.

PRESENTING…LUIS BARRIOS, JODIE ROURE, JEANNETTE BROWN and JOSÉ LUIS MORÍN (Latin American and Latina/o Studies) presented papers on “Human Rights and Criminal Justice in the Dominican Republic” at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on October 21, 2009.

They also presented papers on “Criminology, Victimology and Human Rights: Experiences and Ethnographic Research in the Dominican Republic” at the VIII International Criminology Seminar, sponsored by the School of Law and Political Science at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.

JON M. SHANE (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) has been delivering workshop training in police performance management to agencies throughout the United States and Canada that are implementing a Compstat-type accountability model. The workshops are based on Shane’s recently completed project for the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, titled “Institutionalizing and Implementing Compstat in Maryland.” Shane has been invited to present the workshop for the Jamaica Constabulary Force in March, and is customizing the workshop for the John Jay Community Policing Leadership Academy for presentation later this year.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) was an invited speaker at the New York City Police Department’s Homicide Investigator’s Course (74th session) on January 20. Her lecture dealt with the application of knowledge about psychopathy for homicide investigators.

BETWEEN THE COVERSHOWARD PFLANZER (Communication and Theatre Arts) has had an excerpted article, “Older People Act Up: Making the Ordinary Extraordinary,” published in the new anthology Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice (University of Chicago Press). The article originally appeared in a 1992 issue of TDR: The Drama Review.

DIANA FRIEDLAND and MARGARET WALLACE (Sciences), along with Meghan J. McFadden of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, have published a manuscript titled “DNA Profiles from Flip-Open Cell Phones” in the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences.

PEER REVIEWNED BENTON (Public Management) has been elected to a lifetime seat on the Board of Directors of the Association of Inspectors General, the national association of IGs. Benton will also serve on the board and the Executive Committee of the newly created New York regional chapter of the association.

RALPH W. LARKIN (Sociology) has had his book Comprehending Columbine (Temple University Press) chosen as one of the out-standing academic books for 2009 by Choice magazine, published by the American Library Association.

The John Jay College athletics department recently won top honors from the National Col-legiate Athletics Association (NCAA) for overall excellence in diversity. John Jay was one of only nine institutions among Division III colleges and universities to earn the distinction.

Athletics Director Dan Palumbo attended the NCAA Convention in Atlanta, GA, where he accepted the award at the Division III business session. “It’s a great feeling to be recognized as a department with such a diverse team working toward a common goal,” Palumbo said. “And to be recognized and congratulated in front of col-leagues for having a diverse department puts the College in a great light.”

For the second year, the NCAA partnered with Texas A&M University’s Laboratory for Diversity in Sport to present the awards, which recognize overall excellence in diversity as well as diversity strategy, gender diversity, gender equity (Title IX proportionality), racial diversity, and value and attitudinal diversity.

In addition to the overall excellence award, John Jay was recognized for racial diversity of athletics department employees.

“I am so pleased John Jay has been recognized for its diversity in Athletics,” said Vice President for Student Development Berenecea Johnson Eanes. “It is one of the core beliefs of the institu-tion that we make every attempt to be inclusive to the larger New York City community. I have

With its sights set on another season of great performances, John Jay’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater recently unveiled its Spring 2010 Series of concerts, plays and other events.

The season kicked off in exotic fashion on January 30 with Bellydance Evolution’s production of “Immortal Desires,” a mythological tale of passion, jealousy and timeless love. Under the direction of belly dance superstar Jillina, an all-star cast performed a mix of dance styles including Egyptian, Turkish, Bollywood, Georgian, Persian, Uzbek and Modern Tribal Fusion, in the context of an original story by Brandi Centeno and set to original music by Paul Dinletir.

On February 21, the theater’s “Great Music for a Great City” series continues with a bicentennial salute to the Polish composer Frederic Chopin. The free concert, billed as a “200th birthday marathon,” will feature pianists from around the world in performances of Chopin’s works.

Zombie, a play adapted by Bill Connington from a novella by Joyce Carol Oates, will be

Theater Rolls Out Ambitious Program of Spring Offerings

Deadlines are looming for qualified John Jay students to apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship funds, and dozens of awards for graduating seniors.

The College offers scholarships for freshmen, sophomores, upper-division and graduate students as well as some specifically aimed at women, international students, law enforcement employees, research-minded students and more. March 15 is the deadline to apply for remaining 2009 – 2010 scholarships. However, as the Scholarship Office moves to upgrades its services, the 2010 – 2011 application deadline is now April 30, 2010.

Scholarship Coordinator Michael Scaduto pointed out that all scholarships require completion and submission of the John Jay Scholarship General Application form, a personal statement and two letters of recommendation. The General Application Form is available online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/GeneralScholarshipApplication08.pdf.

In addition, Scaduto said, some scholarships may also require additional essays or other pertinent information.

For a list of scholarships that are currently available, including descriptions and eligibility criteria, go to www.jjay.cuny.edu/scholarships.php. Information is also available in the Office of Scholarship Services, Room 1285N.

“We’re taking more of a strategic direction with regard to scholarships,” said Scaduto. “We want to recruit and retain qualified students, based on things like academics, public service and activities outside of academics, and then support them once they’re on campus, keeping them active in the larger John Jay community.”

A new Web feature allows students to sign up for the “John Jay College Scholars Network” to receive information about new and current scholarships, application information and deadlines, invitations to workshops and seminars, and other relevant updates.

Scaduto pointed out that March 15 is also the deadline for seniors to apply for 2010 graduation awards. More information is available online at www.jjay.cuny.edu/academics/1230.php.

Clock Is Ticking for Scholarship Applicants

Bill Connington, in a scene from his play Zombie, which will be staged at the Gerald

W. Lynch Theater on March 10, 12 and 13.

presented in the theater on March 10, 12 and 13. The play challenges its audience to “get inside the mind of a homicidal psychopath… if you dare.”

On March 27 and 28, a compelling two-day festival of documentary films, lectures and music, “The Legacy of Shoah” will share

the personal experiences of survivors of the Holocaust. The festival will feature the American premiere of The Forgotten Transports, four films about deportations of Jews to little known concentration camps in Latvia, Belarus, Estonia and Poland.

The Spring 2010 Series also includes:

¶ First Throws, John Jay’s first playwrights’ salon, which will present new theatrical works and readings in a casual setting, on February 22, March 22 and April 26;

¶ John Jay’s Got Talent, a new installment of the showcase featuring performers from throughout the College, on February 23;

¶ Storytime with Barnes & Noble @ John Jay, on February 23, March 23 and April 13, a special story-telling hour for children and their caregivers;

¶ Ballet Academy East presents the spring performance by its Pre-professional Division, on May 21 – 23, with works choreographed by leading artists of the dance world.

to echo Dan Palumbo’s statement that working together is key. It takes all of the individuals in Athletics to provide quality opportunities and activities to the students.”

John Jay Athletics DepartmentCited by NCAA for Diversity Efforts

Athletics Director Dan Palumbo (right) is joined by CUNY

Athletic Conference Executive Director Zak Ivkovic after

John Jay was honored by the NCAA.

Capturing the StruggleBlack History Month got off to a rousing start at John Jay on February 3, with the opening of the one-woman show “Freedom Riders & Bus Boycotters,” in the President’s Gallery on the 6th Floor of Haaren Hall. Artist Charlotta Janssen (second from left, above) painted a series of bold portraits from the mug-shots of civil rights activists who were arrested between February 21, 1956, and May 25, 1961 — the beginning and then the height of the civil rights movement. Janssen worked in acrylic, iron oxide, oil and edding, and then added collage effects including actual mugshots, arrest records, handwritten sermons, Bible pages, segregation signs, protest letters and song lyrics as a backdrop. Born in Maine to German refugee parents, Janssen studied painting at the University of Arts in Berlin, and also lived in Iran and Germany before resettling in the United States in 1995. At the opening reception, Janssen introduced President Travis to two of her subjects, both veterans of the struggle that defined an era. The exhibit, co-sponsored by the President’s Office and the Department of Art and Music, will run through March 26.

Did you washyour hands lately?

It’s still flu season,and common-sense precautions

are your best defenseagainst illness.


January 27, 2010

Worth NotingFebruary 1 7:00 PMLecture Series: Justice &Injustice in 1950s AmericaThe 1950s Nobody KnowsMichael MeeropolVisiting Associate Professorof Economics, John Jay College


February 1-2 8:30 AM5th Annual Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in AmericaCriminal Justice Reform: What Works?What Doesn’t? What Don’t We Know?Presented by the Center on Media, Crime and Justice. Includes presentation of the John Jay Excellence in Journalism Awards.


February 8 6:00 PMLloyd Sealy LecturePolice Chief Val B. DemingsOrlando, FL


February 8 7:00 PMLecture Series: Justice &Injustice in 1950s AmericaThe Changing Concept of Freedomin the United States, 1945 – 1960Eric FonerColumbia University


The National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC), a John Jay College-sponsored coalition of leading criminal justice officials and scholars from jurisdictions throughout the United States, held its first annual conference on December 2-3, with an eye toward spreading the word about strategies aimed at preventing gang-related homicide and other serious violence and eliminating overt drug markets.

The strategies are the handiwork of Professor David Kennedy, Director of John Jay’s Center on Crime Prevention and Control. They have already been successfully implemented in a number of American cities, with ensuing dramatic decreases in serious crime.

“We’ve been losing whole generations of young people to the streets, prison or murder, and we simply don’t have to live with that any longer,” said Kennedy.

The December conference, coming less than six months after the network’s formal launch last year, brought together 300 attendees from 75 cities in 22 states and countries, including England, Peru, Gaza, Israel, Australia and the Netherlands. John Jay President Jeremy Travis said in his welcoming remarks: “You represent all the professions that are working toward safety and justice — police executives, youth workers, pastors, prosecutors, correction officers, social service providers, academics, journalists, educators, community activists and formerly incarcerated men and women.” The conference,

Travis added, will help participants “strengthen your commitment to changing the world.”

Travis and Kennedy serve as NNSC co-chairs.Bernard R. Melekian, a former police chief

who now serves as Director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, noted in a keynote address: “Community policing must be a philosophy, not a project. It must be a commitment to building relationships and solving problems.”

The conference was a two-day whirl of plenary and breakout sessions, punctuated with count-less “corridor conferences” among participants eager to do some on-the-spot problem-solving

with colleagues. Sessions explored the nuts and bolts of the NNSC’s twin strategies; project man-agement; race, reconciliation and truth- telling; community engagement, and cutting-edge operational innovations, among other topics.

For more information on the NNSC, visit www.nnscommunities.org.

Gov. David A. Paterson’s Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice, chaired by John Jay President Jeremy Travis, released its final report on December 14, in which it called for investment in community-based, treatment-focused services that can improve outcomes for youth and their families and hold youths accountable for their actions while promoting greater public safety.

Travis said the task force’s 20 sweeping recommendations “will bring New York State in line with best practices that can help troubled youth and their families, protect the public and optimize scarce state resources.”

The task force was composed of state and local officials, representatives from unions, advocacy groups and community-based organizations, and academic experts from across the United States. In producing its report — “Charting a New Course: A Blueprint for Transforming Juvenile Justice in New York State” — task force members conducted an extensive review of research literature, analyzed reams of data and visited jurisdictions and facilities throughout the state.

The Vera Institute of Justice provided staffing, data analysis and logistical support for the task force.

Paterson created the task force in September 2008 and charged it with developing ways to change a punitive-based system in which more than 1,600 youths enter correctional institutions each year, at an annual cost of roughly $210,000 per child. The task force found that many of the incarcerated youths leave the system more angry, fearful or violent than when they entered.

Among the report’s specific recommendations are:

• Reserve institutional placement for youth who pose a significant risk to public safety, and

ensuring that no youth is placed in a facility because of social service needs;

• Reduce the disproportionate representation of youth of color in institutional placement;

• Ensure that New York State operates a unified and cohesive system of care that keeps all youth in its custody safe, whether in private or government-run facilities;

• Downsize or close underutilized facilities, and reinvest those savings in communities;

• Make facilities more conducive to positive youth development and rehabilitation;

• Limit the amount of time youth spend in institutional facilities;

• Establish an independent, external oversight body to monitor and report on juvenile justice policies and practices.

The task force report can be accessed online at www.vera.org/paterson-task-force-juvenile-justice-report.

With the sizable population of Haitian-American students at John Jay, the recent earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation was an especially poignant and personal tragedy, and the college community has quickly mobilized to assist with relief efforts.

Expressing “solidarity” with the John Jay students, staff, faculty and community members who are of Haitian descent, President Jeremy Travis said, “This is a time for our community to come together to assist those who are affected by this unspeakable tragedy.”

Travis designated Vice President for Student Development Berenecea Johnson Eanes to take the lead in coordinating the College’s disaster response.

“The catastrophe in Haiti reminds us all that tragedy can strike at any time,” said Eanes. The centerpiece of the College’s response will be a “Help Rebuild Haiti Campaign” that will feature a variety of fundraising events through the spring 2010 semester. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts will partner with the College on many of the events, Eanes noted.

Monetary donations will be accepted in the Haaren Hall and North Hall lobbies beginning on January 22, and in the Westport lobby beginning on January 28. “Give as generously as your circumstances permit,” Eanes said, noting that the funds will be distributed to reputable organizations such as the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Yele Haiti and others for the purchase of food, water, medical supplies and other necessities as determined by the relief

organizations.Volunteers are needed to staff donation tables,

and should contact the Division of Student Development at 212.237.8100 and/or e-mail [email protected].

The Department of Counseling is available for those members of the student body who need support as they react to the natural disaster or who need help in accessing external resources. Individual counseling support or group consultations can be arranged by contacting the Counseling Center at 212.237.8111.

Members of the faculty and staff in need of such services should contact Dean of Human Resources Donald Gray (212.237.8512) or Director of Human Resources Christél Colon (212.237.8296).

Brennon Taylor, a graduate student and John Jay Peer Ambassador, is one of many who are devoting time, energy and resources to earthquake relief efforts. “I have extended family as well as friends who were directly affected by this catastrophe,” said Taylor. “Some of us have learned that aunts, nephews and siblings are either missing or dead. Those who are alive are homeless and are suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, diarrhea and infectious diseases from the dead bodies lying next to them in the middle of the street.”

Taylor estimated that roughly 1,000 students make up the Haitian and Haitian-American population at John Jay, with more numbered among the College’s alumni. The Haitian and

African student associations are taking the lead, along with faculty and administrators, in organizing relief efforts at John Jay, including the desperately needed fundraising drives.

“It would be awesome if the school can unite a group to go to Haiti for this cause,” said Taylor, noting that he plans to travel to Haiti himself to help in rebuilding efforts. “Basically, I would like to offer a helping hand wherever I can,” he said.

Keynote speaker Bernard R. Melekian (left), Director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of

Community-Oriented Policing Services, enjoys an informal moment with President Travis and

Professor David Kennedy, co-chairs of the National Network for Safe Communities.

Report Has Some Stern Suggestions for ReformingNew York Juvenile Justice

Conference Helps Jump-Start Network for Safe Communities

All Hands on Deck, as College Rallies to Aid Victims of Haitian Earthquake

An earthquake survivor’s face says it all: Please help!

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Eighteen employees were honored as the latest winners of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards on December 14.

“I love the Bravo! Award program,” said President Jeremy Travis. “To be able to recognize employees who are making such a difference is a very great honor and pleasure for me.”

The fifth semiannual group of divisional Bravo! Award winners were recognized for their “new and creative ideas, innovative problem-solving and superior customer service, noted Robert Pignatello, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration. Pignatello said one measure of the employee-recognition program’s success is that the Bravo! Awards are “getting more competitive each year.”

The College’s vice presidents were called to the podium in alphabetical order to introduce the employees in their units who were to receive the Bravo! Awards. The winners were:

Academic Affairs: Christopher Aviles (Latin American and Latina/o Studies), Anila Duro (Graduate Studies), Kevin Nesbitt (Provost’s Office), Kate Szur (First-Year Experience), Sumaya Villanueva (Academic Advisement);

Student Development: Elena Beharry (Counseling), Christine Givens (Counseling);

Finance and Administration: Juan Baez (Information Technology), Gina Galligan (Budget), Jonathan Romano (Facilities), Gulen Zubizarreta (Human Resources);

Marketing and Development: Elizabeth McCabe (Government Relations); Kathy Willis (Publications);

Enrollment Management: Christopher Laudando (Undergraduate Admissions), Rose O’Neil (Student Financial Services), Katarzyna Pszeniczna (Vice President’s Office), Mairym Roldan (Graduate Admissions);

President’s Office: Rulisa Galloway-Perry.

PRESENTING…WAYNE EDWARDS (Dean of Students) and MA’AT LEWIS (Counseling) made a presentation, titled “First-Time BIT Challenges at an Urban Campus within a Public University System: A Case Study,” at the 2009 conference of the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association, held December 10-11 in San Antonio, TX. The presentation was based on their work and experience as members of John Jay’s Behavioral Intervention Team.

LORRAINE MOLLER (Communication and

Theatre Arts) presented a paper at the recent New York State Communication Association conference in Ellenville, NY. The paper, “Myths and Realities about Working with Women Behind Bars,” focused on Moller’s work in theatre with incarcerated women at the Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan. Her paper “Project Slam: Rehabilitation through Theatre at Sing Sing Correctional Facility” was accepted for presentation at the 5th International Conference on the Arts in Society, scheduled for spring 2010 in Sydney, Australia.

KIMORA (Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration) spoke to female offenders at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Los Angeles, CA, on December 11. The talk, titled “Take your Recovery Seriously,” focused on the educational and rehabilitative services available to inmates wishing to overcome substance abuse and domestic violence. On December 18, she spoke to the entire inmate population at Edgecombe Correctional Facility in New York on the subject of “Making Reentry Work for You.”

BETWEEN THE COVERSGEORGE ANDREOPOULOS (Political Science) and MARIA VICTORIA PEREZ-RIOS (Political Science) recently authored a report on NGO Strategies to Implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820, which was commissioned by the International Women’s Tribune Center (IWTC). The report grew out of a strategy session organized by the IWTC, for which Andreopoulos and Perez-Rios acted as consultants.

CHARLES JENNINGS (Protection Management) was cited in the November 2009 issue of Old House Journal discussing fire safety in older homes. He stressed the importance of maintenance and upkeep, and the role of human behavior in starting many fires.

PEER REVIEWALEXANDER SCHULTZ (English) has won the 2009 Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize for his book Mind’s World: Imagination and Subjectivity

from Descartes to Romanticism (University of Washington Press, 2009). The prize was presented by the International Conference on Romanticism in recognition of the year’s best book in Romanticism studies.

MARCIA ESPARZA (Criminal Justice) recently won a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Research Award, which will be used to complete her manuscript on the aftermath of war and genocide in Guatemala.

JANE KATZ (Health and Physical Education) was featured in a cover story in the fall 2009 publication of the Council for Aquatic Professionals, a division of the American Asso-ciation for Physical Activity and Recreation. In October, Katz competed and won several medals in the Synchronized Swimming National Championships and the World Senior Games, held in St. George, UT. She also won four gold medals at the Eastern Zone swimming championships, held in Corona, NY, in December.

Crystal Ferguson, a two-sport student-athlete at John Jay, has won an appointment as a White House intern for the spring 2010 semester.

Ferguson underwent a rigorous application process for the coveted internship, competing against hundreds of candidates from many of the nation’s top universities. The screening process included the submission of essays, letters of recommendation and an interview with a White House official.

“A White House internship is a tremendous achievement,” said John Jay President Jeremy Travis. “We are very proud of Crystal and confident that this will be the experience of a lifetime for her. We’re equally pleased that yet

another member of the John Jay community will be joining the Obama Administration.”

In recent months, former faculty members James Lynch and Ellen Scrivner and alumni Benjamin Tucker and Beatrice Wilkinson Welters were named to top positions in the Obama Administration.

Ferguson said she was “very excited” to hear that she had won the White House internship. “When I first found out, I was crying,” she said. “I

Dozens of John Jay freshmen stood proudly alongside poster presentations in the North Hall Multi-Purpose Room on December 10, showing off their research projects as part of the Learning Community Student Showcase 2009.

“It really is amazing that first-year students are doing such original research,” said Kate Szur, Director of the First-Year Experience program. Entering freshmen at John Jay can choose from 25 Learning Communities, of which nine, along with a First-Year Seminar, presented their research at the showcase.

There are approximately 25 students in each Learning Community, under the tutelage of two professors from different disciplines, Szur noted. Students collaborate on research and presentations, either by design or at the suggestion of their professors.

Claire Prince, a member of the John Jay women’s basketball team, and Keshia Hacker, a member of the swim team, started their research projects separately, but came together after Professors Frank Gimpaya and Pat Licklider detected a common thread in their areas of interest. “I started with an investigation of Queen Nefertiti, who was a beauty icon for her time,”

said Prince. Hacker said she was “into Goth” and “interested in death.” The result of their collaboration was a look at mummification, or what Prince called “the art of death.”

Keenan Adams-Edwards and Jesse Lama, under the guidance of Professors Kimora and Geoffrey Jacques, offered a poster presentation on what Adams-Edwards termed “different aspects of criminal justice that we could improve.” Lama focused on homicide, a topic that he said had always intrigued him. Adams-Edwards looked at mental and social rehabilitation in correctional settings.

Said Adams-Edwards, “For both of us the focus was on preventability — preventing homicide deaths and preventing repeat incarcerations.”

The next day, student participants in another innovative learning venture unveiled their own creative efforts as part of “Underground Words/Underground Images,” a poetry reading and photography exhibition.

For the exhibit, which was an adjunct to a contest sponsored by the Subway Series project, students were asked to chronicle their daily commute in words and images. “Why do these

Broad smiles were the order of the day for the latest winners of the Bravo! Employee Recognition Awards on December 14.

College Salutes Employees Whose Service Goes the Extra Mile

Student Research & CreativityEnjoy End-of-Term Spotlight

two journeys — going to school and traveling to school — have to be mutually exclusive?” observed Professor Mark McBeth, the English department’s deputy chair for writing programs. “The vibrant commute to school should act as part of the educational experience.”

One student, Deborah Azulphart, won the

First-Year Experience Prize for Photography for a nine-image PowerPoint presentation that wowed the contest judges.

“The poems and photos are artistic, ethno-graphic, resonant and powerful,” said McBeth. “The people who created them should be very proud.”

Winson Thai, a junior, captured an A train arriving in a station for the exhibit “Underground Words/ Underground Images.”

John Jay Student Wins Prized White House Internshipjust hope I can make as many connections as possible, learn as much as I can and represent myself and John Jay College to the best of my ability.”

A member of the women’s cross-country and basketball teams, Ferguson is no stranger to politics, having worked on the recent reelection campaign of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In 2007, she participated in the All-Star

Project’s Development School for Youth, a 14-week leadership-training program for young people age 16-21. Her participation earned her a paid internship the following summer with Health Plus Insurance Company.

Ferguson is a junior majoring in Deviant Behavior and Social Control, with career ambitions of becoming an attorney.

The White House Internship Program provides a unique opportunity to gain valuable professional experience and build leadership skills. The hands-on program is designed to mentor and cultivate young leaders, strengthen their understanding of the Executive Office and prepare them for future public service.Crystal Ferguson

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@John Jay Newsletter Archive 2010

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